“The pandemic had a substantial impact on community understanding of clinical trials. Having said that, the sort of ambient level of community knowledge of clinical trials is still substantially lower than it needs to be,” explains Australian Clinical Trials Alliance Board Chair Steve Webb. “Community awareness of the difference between evaluation of experimental interventions, about which relatively little is known regarding safety and effectiveness, compared with comparative effectiveness research, is an important distinction often with limited understanding in the community, in government, and amongst policymakers.”