4 facts about Americans’ views of the World Health Organization

On the first day of his second administration, President Donald Trump announced that the United States will withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations health agency. He cited dissatisfaction with the organization’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the United States’ role as its largest funder.

But what do Americans think of the WHO? Here are some key findings about U.S. opinion of the organization, drawn from Pew Research Center surveys conducted before Trump’s announcement.

How we did this

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to explore Americans’ views of the World Health Organization in light of President Donald Trump’s plans to withdraw the United States from the organization. We drew on a survey of 3,600 adults conducted from April 1-7, 2024, before Trump’s announcement, as well as a survey of 2,596 adults conducted from Feb. 1-7, 2021, during the coronavirus pandemic.

Everyone who took part in these surveys is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), a group of people recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses who have agreed to take surveys regularly. This kind of recruitment gives nearly all U.S. adults a chance of selection. Surveys were conducted either online or by telephone with a live interviewer.

The surveys are weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.

Here are the questions used for this analysis and the survey methodology.

More than half of Americans believe the U.S. benefits from its membership in the WHO. As of April 2024, 25% of U.S. adults say the country benefits a great deal from its membership, while about one third say it benefits a fair amount.

Conversely, 38% say the U.S. does not benefit much or at all from WHO membership.

The benefits of WHO membership are less evident to Americans now than during the coronavirus pandemic. The share who say the U.S. benefits a great deal or a fair amount decreased significantly between 2021 and 2024. That includes a decrease of 8 percentage points in the share who say the U.S. benefits a great deal.

The 2021 survey was conducted in the weeks after then-President Joe Biden blocked Trump’s first attempt at withdrawing the U.S. from the WHO.

Democrats are roughly twice as likely as Republicans to see benefits in WHO membership. While about eight-in-ten Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say the U.S. benefits from being part of the WHO, just 38% of Republicans and Republican leaners agree. That gap is 41 points, larger than the partisan divides seen when asking about the benefits of membership in the UN (36 points) or NATO (30 points).

Still, it’s slightly narrower than in 2021, when Democrats were 50 points more likely than Republicans to see benefits to WHO membership.

The difference is even more stark between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans. The former are 55 points more likely than the latter to see benefits to WHO membership.  

In 2021, Americans were mostly pleased with how the WHO was handling the coronavirus pandemic. A 55% majority said the organization was doing a good job, and 42% said it was doing a bad job.

By comparison, just 42% said the U.S. was managing the outbreak well, and 43% said the same of China. Germany (72%) and the European Union (61%) got higher ratings for their management of the outbreak. 

Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis and the survey methodology.