Public trust in physicians and hospitals has sharply declined from 71.5% in April 2020 to just 40.1% in January 2024, according to results of a study published July 31 in JAMA Network Open.
The decline in trust of 31.4 percentage points was calculated from an analysis of 24 online surveys that were conducted between April 2020 and January 2024 using responses from 443,455 adults across the U.S.
Trust declined the most among adults between ages 25-64, among women, individuals with lower education and income levels, Black adults, and adults living in rural regions, according to the study.
"[W]e found that trust in physicians and hospitals decreased throughout the COVID-19 pandemic across all sociodemographic groups," the authors of the study wrote.
Researchers also asked survey respondents to self-report their COVID-19, booster, and influenza vaccination status, which revealed a strong correlation between higher trust and higher likelihood to seek out vaccines.
Lower trust levels were associated with a lower likelihood to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and the flu, but the authors note that "these associations were not explained by political affiliation, nor fully accounted for by trust in science, suggesting some specificity for medicine per se."
Reasons for the continued decline of trust in medicine and medical professionals seem to center around financial concerns, which continues to be an area of investigation and "a major factor associated with mistrust," according to the authors, and this "may have been amplified during the pandemic."