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Featured Clinical Reviews

Editorial
Trust in Health Care
July 15, 2019

Building Trust in Health Care—Why, Where, and How

Author Affiliations
  • 1Department of Healthcare Policy and Research and Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York
JAMA. 2019;322(6):507-509. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.4892

Trust in US health care has declined precipitously in the past half century. In 1966, 73% of US residents had confidence in medical leaders, whereas in 2012, only 34% did.1 In a survey of 1009 participants in 2017, only 18% expressed high levels of confidence in the US health system, and in a 2014 survey of 1608 participants, only 31% indicated that they trusted public health officials to share complete and accurate information during disease outbreaks.2,3 Recent high-profile events—such as those involving health care companies like Purdue Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson, and Theranos; vaccine misinformation contributing to the largest US measles outbreak in decades; and well-publicized examples of failure to disclose important conflict of interest information—have also contributed to mistrust and reduced confidence in health care entities.

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