A new national study names doctors, educators and journalists as the professions most trusted by Costa Ricans.
At the other end, moneylenders, union leaders and the police force were the groups in which Ticos had the least confidence, according to the CID-Gallup poll commisioned by the business daily La República.
Doctors held the top spot, with 72 percent of respondents saying they had confidence in the profession. “The people recognize the great sacrifice that the professional training requires. … You have to be ready whenever anybody needs you,” said Minor Vargas, president of the Costa Rican Doctors and Surgeons Association.
Educators got the next best ratings, with schoolteachers garnering 70 percent support, and university professors 63 percent.
The press was the next most trusted sector, as television journalists nabbed a confidence level of 57 percent, and print and radio journalists 50 percent each.
Least trusted by Ticos, moneylenders and loan sharks notched an 85 percent disapproval rating and a dismal 10 percent favorable rating.
Union leaders, at 20 percent twice as popular as moneylenders, notched the second highest amount of negative opinions, with just over three in four Costa Ricans having little or no confidence in them.
A sizeable number of respondents, 29 percent, asserted little or no confidence in the police forces. This sentiment tended to be greater among homes where someone had been a crime victim, regardless of where he or she lived or level of education.
Moreover, the study showed that the less confidence respondents had, the less likely they were to report the crimes to police authorities.
Catholic priests were the one group to receive equal amounts of positive and negative evaluations, faring better than their Evangelical counterparts, who ranked only above police officers.
The survey inquired about people’s level of confidence in 15 professional sectors, including businesspeople, lawyers, lottery ticket sellers and government employees. The full results and raw data have not been released by La República.
The survey of 1,219 people nationwide has a margin of error of 2.8 percent, according to CID-Gallup.
