Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Nov;33(8):1187-1193.
doi: 10.1177/0890117119861280. Epub 2019 Jul 23.

Americans' Trust in Health Information Sources: Trends and Sociodemographic Predictors

Affiliations

Americans' Trust in Health Information Sources: Trends and Sociodemographic Predictors

Devlon N Jackson et al. Am J Health Promot. 2019 Nov.

Abstract

Purpose: To assess the public's trust in health information sources (ie, government health agencies, doctors, family/friends, charitable organizations, and religious leaders/organizations) from 2005 to 2015 and identify sociodemographics factors associated with high trust.

Design: Cross-sectional.

Setting: Health Information National Trends Survey, a US nationally representative publicly available data on health-related knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes.

Participants: Data included 5 iterations (2005-2015) of US adults (2005: N = 5586, 2008: N = 7764, 2011: N = 3959, 2013: N = 3185, and 2015: N = 3738).

Measures: Outcome variables were high trust in health information sources and independent variables were sociodemographics.

Analysis: A descriptive analysis was conducted to track changes in trust over the past decade. The χ2 and multivariable logistic regression were conducted to assess sociodemographic associations in 2015.

Results: Trust in health information across all sources remained stable from 2005 to 2015. Doctors were the most trusted source, followed by government health agencies. Sociodemographics were independently associated with trust. For example, non-Hispanic blacks were more likely to trust charitable organizations (odds ratio [OR] = 2.32, confidence interval [CI] = 1.42-3.79) and religious leaders/organizations (OR = 3.57, CI = 1.20-10.57) compared to non-Hispanic whites. In addition, those with less than high school education (OR = 2.44, CI = 1.32-4.52) were more likely than college graduates to report trust in religious leaders/organizations.

Conclusion: Although there are analytic limitations to the specific time periods, the findings demonstrate that public health communication practitioners must consider the role of source credibility among priority populations when disseminating and promoting information.

Keywords: health communication; health information; health promotion; information sources; trust.

PubMed Disclaimer

LinkOut - more resources