How we did this
This Pew Research Center analysis focuses on public perceptions of global threats in 25 countries across the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East-North Africa region, North America and sub-Saharan Africa. Views of global threats are examined in the context of long-term trend data.
For non-U.S. data, this analysis draws on nationally representative surveys of 28,333 adults conducted from Jan. 8 to April 26, 2025. All surveys were conducted over the phone with adults in Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Surveys were conducted face-to-face in Argentina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa and Turkey. In Australia, we used a mixed-mode probability-based online panel.
In the United States, we surveyed 3,605 U.S. adults from March 24 to 30, 2025. Everyone who took part in this survey 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 survey is 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, along with responses, and the survey methodology.
In a world facing a range of difficult issues, adults across 25 countries see the spread of false information online, the condition of the global economy and terrorism as major threats today.
And while many people remain concerned about climate change and the spread of infectious diseases, fewer view these as major threats now than did in recent years.
These findings come from the latest Pew Research Center analysis of perceived global threats, which follows similar studies conducted in 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2022.
Overall, a median of 72% of adults across 25 nations surveyed in spring 2025 say that the spread of false information online is a major threat to their country. A further 21% say it is a minor threat, while 5% say it is not a threat at all.
In seven countries – Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States and South Korea – more people view the spread of false information as a threat than any other issue asked about.
Germans and Poles, who voted in competitive national elections within the last year, see this as the top threat by a considerable margin.
Related: Widespread global public concern about made-up news
A median of 70% of adults across the countries surveyed view the condition of the global economy as a major threat. Another 27% say it’s a minor threat, and 4% say it is not a threat. People in two countries – Greece and Australia – view the global economy as the top threat of those included in the survey.
Meanwhile, the share of adults who see global economic conditions as a major threat has increased in 21 countries since 2017.
Concerns about the world economy are generally tied to views of national economic conditions. In 23 countries, people with a more negative view of their nation’s economy are more likely to say that the condition of the global economy is a major threat.
What is a median?
In this analysis, median scores are used to help readers see overall patterns in the data. The median percentage is the middle number in a list of all percentages sorted from highest to lowest.
A 25-country median of 69% of adults view terrorism as a major threat, while 26% characterize it as a minor threat and 6% say it is no threat at all. People in four countries – India, Israel, Nigeria and Turkey – see terrorism as the top threat of the five issues asked about.
In Israel, concerns about terrorism especially outweigh concerns about the other issues. And Jewish Israelis are far more likely than Arab Israelis to see terrorism as a major threat to their country (96% vs. 61%). The survey was fielded about a year and a half after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
People in middle-income countries are generally more likely than those in high-income countries to see terrorism as a major threat (79% median vs. 60% median). Concerns about terrorism also tend to be higher among older adults, people with less education and those on the ideological right, including supporters of right-leaning populist parties. (Read Appendix A for more information on how we classify high- and middle-income countries, and read Appendix B for more information on how we classify populist parties.)
A median of 67% of adults across the nations surveyed see global climate change as a major threat. Another 24% say it is a minor threat, and 9% say it is no threat. In no survey country is climate change the single greatest perceived threat.
On balance, however, concerns about climate change are higher than in 2013, both in advanced economies and middle-income countries. The share of people who view it as a major threat has increased sizably in France (+24 percentage points since 2013), Turkey (+23), Mexico (+22), the UK (+18), Kenya (+15), Nigeria (+13), Israel (+12), Australia (+11), the U.S. (+11), Germany (+11) and Poland (+10).
As in previous years, people on the ideological left are more concerned than those on the right about climate change.
Meanwhile, just a few years after the COVID-19 pandemic, a median of 60% adults across the countries surveyed view the spread of infectious diseases as a major threat. Another 30% see it as a minor threat, and 5% say it is no threat at all.
In three countries – Argentina, Brazil and South Africa – disease is seen as the top threat of the five issues asked about. And around eight-in-ten adults or more view it as a major threat in Kenya (88%), Turkey (87%), Indonesia (86%) and Mexico (82%).
Generally, people in middle-income countries are more concerned than those in advanced economies about the spread of infectious diseases. In fact, in the nine advanced economies we have surveyed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the share of people who view disease as a major threat has dropped from 74% in 2020 to 61% in 2022 and 50% this year.
On the other hand, the shares of people who view global economic conditions as a major threat have increased substantially over the longer term across many high- and middle-income countries.
Jump to further analysis about the perceived threat posed by:
