Should public health authorities improve trust by conveying more nuanced messages to the public?

Emily Oster makes this argument, which has a superficial attractiveness.

Basically, she says public health authorities don’t make nuanced enough distinctions when making recommendations, between, for example, recommending that children be vaccinated against measles, and recommending that people not drink raw milk.

She points out that the benefits of measles vaccinations are massive, and the objections to them are totally bogus, while the health risks of drinking raw milk are relatively minor, although the purported health benefits of drinking it have no evidence to support their actual existence. Therefore:

Being more nuanced will not be easy for public health agencies. They need to put more trust in their audience. This means communicating that sometimes the evidence is uncertain or complicated and may change over time. It may mean acknowledging that reasonable people may make different choices on a given issue.

It also requires health authorities to recognize that prioritizing this messaging means making trade-offs. If health experts share a more balanced message about raw milk, more people might drink raw milk. And, yes, that does entail some increased risk. I am arguing that in exchange you may get higher measles vaccination. It’s not a perfect scenario, but it may mean that fewer people get sick and die. Which, after all, should be the ultimate goal.

[Extreme Bill Paxton voice] I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up with current events Emily, but the people who would purportedly benefit from a more nuanced public health message than “vaccines good; raw milk bad” just elected Donald Trump president, which suggests rather strongly that the American public doesn’t really “do” nuance, on this or any other subject.

The theory of causation she’s suggesting here strikes me as just completely wacky, and yet another example of how intellectuals will reach for any explanation for the public’s behavior rather than the obvious one, which is that people in general are not real good at the whole thinking thing, and are therefore vulnerable to manipulation by the most shamelessly preposterous demagogues, like oh I don’t know I’m sure I can think of an example if my long term memory stretches back more than six days into the past.