Americans most trust physicians for health recommendations, according to a new study published in Frontiers in Medicine. On the other hand, trust in advice from health agencies and scientists has decreased, largely due to conflicting recommendations.
The research, led by Arch Mainous, PhD, a professor at the University of Florida at Gainesville and the paper’s senior author, analyzed responses from a nationally representative sample of more than 5,800 US adults.
The study found that 95% of study respondents expressed “high trust” in physicians for health information, and 84% believed they could trust scientists. Government health agencies took third place, with 70% of study participants deeming those agencies trustworthy. A mere 18% of respondents reported high trust in health information gleaned from social media.
Importantly, people who perceived frequent changes or conflicts in expert health recommendations also were significantly less likely to trust scientists and government agencies. This effect did not appear to affect trust in doctors, which remained consistently high.
“Here we show that individuals who perceive conflict among experts about health recommendations, and who perceive that recommendations are constantly changing, have significantly lower trust in health information provided by government health agencies,” Mainous said.
The researchers suggested that the scientific process, with its inherent disagreements and evolving consensus, may be confusing to the general public. This confusion could lead to questioning the expertise of health agencies and perceptions of political influence in recommendations.
To address this issue, the study proposed leveraging the trust in doctor-patient relationships. Mainous advised: “Government agencies need to continue to provide patient education, which is an integral part of public health. However, they need to focus more on letting individual physicians, rather than the agency director, for example, be the ones to disseminate agency recommendations to patients.”
