Low global trust in governments, HCWs influencing health information, vaccine attitudes

Editor's Note

This new study by the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health which drew on surveys of more than 149,000 people in 144 countries finds that trust in governments and healthcare workers is correlated with trust in health or medical advice from them and with more positive attitudes toward vaccines.

• Less than one-third of respondents said they trust health advice from their governments.
• Less than half of respondents said they trust their doctors and nurses a lot or felt positive about vaccines.

Belief that vaccines are safe, effective, and important varied substantially worldwide.

• More than 70% of South Asian, but fewer than 40% of European or East Asian respondents strongly agreed with these sentiments.
• Respondents from Europe and North America were particularly unlikely to strongly agree that vaccines were safe.

Policy makers need to understand that the public has varying levels of trust in different institutions, and that trust is essential for effective healthcare delivery and health policy implementation, the researchers say.