US individuals expressing a high degree of trust in MDs plummets from 71.5% to 40.1%

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JAMA

Trusting Health Care Systems to Use Artificial Intelligence
Jessica S. Ancker, MPH, PhD
February 14, 2025

One striking finding of this survey1 is the overall lack of trust in the health care system itself. The authors found that, on a scale of 0 (no trust) to 12 (highest trust), the mean (SD) trust score was only 5.38 (2.18). Others have found that public trust in doctors and in health care organizations plummeted after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. One recent survey2 recorded a shocking 4-year decrease in the proportion of US individuals expressing a high degree of trust, from 71.5% to 40.1%. Reasons for this rapid change are probably numerous, but it seems likely that they could include such recent factors as the polarized response to the pandemic, increases in health care costs borne by patients, and primary care shortages that create barriers to access and reduce the chance that a patient will develop a stable, long-term relationship with a clinician.

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The finding by Nong et al that a majority of respondents had a negative perception of health care AI is congruent with decades of risk perception research showing that hazards perceived as novel and not fully understood are seen as riskier. New and unfamiliar technologies often earn mistrust.
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The current level of ignorance about AI does raise some questions about what respondents were thinking when they answered the 2 survey items in the study.

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