Health citizens globally are feeling and behaving more empowered with respect to their personal health from physical and mental health to social and environmental. Most people believe they can identify good sources of health information, with nearly one in two consumers 18-34 believing an average person can know as much as a doctor. But too many people feel unwell compared to how they felt during the pandemic, and most think major institutions are preventing them from accessing quality care and services which is resulting in an ethos of health care grievance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are some of findings revealed in the fourth annual iteration of The Edelman 2025 Trust Barometer Special Report on Health and Trust, published today to refine the company’s Trust research through the lens of health care and medical-related issues.

The Edelman team fielded this health-focused poll among over 16,000 adults in 16 countries between 4-14 March 2025, Countries surveyed included Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, the UAE, the UK, and the U.S.

Richard Edelman introduced the live session kicking off the research findings in context with the overall Trust Barometer drivers:

First, a macro trend of a mass-class divided between the top and bottom quartiles of populations

Second, that business is still the most-trusted institution ahead of all others (compared with government, NGOs, and media)

Third, that trust has gone local, and,

Fourth, that there is a battle for truth — as we live in a reality where we do not have a set of agreed-upon facts, Edelman explained.

 

 

 

 

 

 

With that socio-political environment in mind, Edelman called out four factors de-stabilizing the influence of health experts and expertise:

  1. Authority is dispersed, no longer top down and more oriented toward friends and family in combination with classic experts
  2. Health is multidimensional: physical, mental, social, and environmental
  3. People feel quite empowered to take control of their health, and,
  4. Influence is local with the “airgame” of national/Federal/”official” public health stakeholders no more important than local “ground game” influencers of pastors and pharmacists, in Edelman’s words.

An over-arching finding this year is what Edelman characterized as “a gigantic rise in the fear of politics entering the hallowed halls of science.”  This statistical rise correlates this year to places where there were elections — in the U.S., to be sure, but also in Japan and Germany — a correlation between the electoral process and health grievance, as Edelman characterizes the situation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We learned about the rise of grievance culture and “hostile activism” in the 2025 Trust Barometer report kicking of the new year at the Davos Summit. [I covered this phenomenon here in Health Populi in the context of Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, and his commitment to relieving health injustices.]

In this study, we see a rise of healthcare grievance which translates into health citizens saying that institutions are actively undermining peoples’ access to better care. Note the bar chart shows the U.S. at 61, above the 50% average in third place after South Africa and Brazil.

To repeat in full meaning: in the U.S., 61% of people believe that business, government, and/or NGOs hurt peoples’ ability to get quality health care.

At the same time, 51% of Americans (that is, one-half of folks living in the U.S.) rate their health status as lower than during the pandemic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Globally, most health citizens do not generally trust any institutional group to do what is right to address peoples’ health needs and concerns, with business — the favored trusted institution overall — dropping by 3 percentage points in this round of the research.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you see at the far right of the previous bar graph, the least-trusted institutional sector for addressing peoples’ health are media.

In this follow-up graph, we can see differences in health citizens’ trust in media to report health information vary by country, with the U.S. ranking low among the 16 countries polled. Only 38% of U.S. health citizens trust media to report accurate information about health care, dropping by 18 percentage points in the past year.

There are many other facets on trust and medical care explored in this important research, and I’ll be exploring more insights in the coming weeks when additional granular data on the U.S. come through the analysis process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  In synthesizing this fourth year of Health and Trust, Edelman offers four recommended tactics to help address the trust/health chasm between institutions and health citizens:

  1. To leverage both institutional AND personal influence: while consumers globally trust friends and family for health information, they also turn to academic sources. So in the “communications battle,” finding the right blend of “airgame” and “groundgame” sources is both art and science, and important to embrace.
  2. Similarly, scientific information and anecdotal evidence are both valued by health consumers — especially when insights are shared by “people like me” dealing with specific conditions and diseases and experiences. This adds in a key ingredient of empathy, which is a common theme we are calling out in many patient-centered case studies we talk about here in Health Populi. 
  3. Engage in the “youth health ecosystem,” as the youngest generational cohorts are pushing back against institutions and organizations that are not embracing health citizens’ health empowerment and demands for self-care and access to services and information.
  4. Activate trusted community networks, as Richard Edelman points out. “from pastors to pharmacists” and other trusted community touchpoints. As health influence shifts more local, these community touchpoints become trust haloes for legacy health care providers and stakeholders in collaboration. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the era of growing healthcare grievance, such collaborations will be crucial to re-engage health citizens in self-care, care in participation with physicians and providers, and re-invigorating believe in science-backed care and cures. Think: vaccines and the growing threat of measles and whooping cough in the U.S. crossing state borders. In the Pogo world, we have met the enemy and she/he is Us in this regard.