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Trust in healthcare wanes as patients turn to social media

As patient trust in social connections and online, uncredentialed creators grows, experts fear a growing medical misinformation issue.

Sara Heath
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Published: 25 Apr 2025

Healthcare's patient trust problem is morphing into healthcare's medical misinformation problem, with new data from Edelman showing that patients are losing trust in healthcare institutions in favor of sources without a medical background.

Indeed, the number of young people foregoing advice from their healthcare providers and instead listening to their family, friends and social media connections is increasing, the "2025 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: Trust and Health" showed.

In the past year, 45% of young people ages 18-34 favored medical advice from their friends and family, while 38% favored advice from social media. Those figures represent double-digit increases from last year, the Edelman report noted.

This comes as young people are more likely than ever before to seek out medical information. Around two-thirds of young people said they consume health information either from traditional healthcare sources or via social media.

This penchant for online research is leading many young people to rely on themselves, rather than their providers, to guide their own healthcare decisions. Just under half (45%) of those ages 18-34 agreed that the average person who's done their own research can know as much as a doctor. That compares to only 22% of older adults over age 55 who said the same.

Foregoing clinician guidance comes with risks

To the healthcare professional, the risks of foregoing clinician advice seem clear. Medical doctors complete at least eight years of education and practical training, while advanced practice providers such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants/associates also complete rigorous training.

Medical advice provided by individuals without that high level of medical training is ripe for medical misinformation, which can be a risk to patient safety.

In fact, some patients reported adverse consequences of listening to non-medical entities, the Edelman report showed. A sizeable 58% of individuals ages 18-34 said they've regretted at least one health decision they've made based on medical misinformation.

Medical misinformation most typically comes from user-generated content (39%) and independent content creators (29%), or the type of content that appears on social media sites. Separate studies have shown that social media sites, such as TikTok, are rife with inaccurate medical claims.

A quarter of those who've regretted a medical decision said the misinformation came from a family member or friend, 21% from the traditional media and 21% from someone on social media.

According to Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman, this is an urgent matter of patient trust.

"Personal experiences cataloged on social media now carry enough weight to rival the believability of data provided by Government or even healthcare providers," he wrote in a blog post accompanying the report. "We need to get facts into the social bloodstream as a matter of urgency, correcting misstatements and providing scientifically validated explanations that are easily understood by the public. This is the true public health emergency that must be treated with urgency."

To begin to combat healthcare's medical misinformation challenges, industry stakeholders need to know who, exactly, patients do trust.

Patients place trust in lived experiences

To be clear, patients do still trust their doctors, the Edelman report showed. "My doctor" still rates as the most trusted to tell the truth about healthcare, with 82% of patients worldwide saying as much.

But another 72% said their next most trusted source of truth about healthcare is their family and friends, underscoring a preference for more human connection.

What's more, people want to connect with someone who has been through a similar experience, with 67% saying that someone with lived experiences is more trustworthy about health information. Another 64% said someone whose advice had helped them in the past could be deemed trustworthy.

At the heart of this is a need for deeper connection, according to Jennifer Hauser, global health co-chair at Edelman.

"The message is clear: people want more than technical or textbook answers," Hauser wrote in a separate post describing the data. "They want to be seen, understood and spoken to in plain language. Credentials remain critical, but they must now be accompanied by communication that builds emotional trust."

For example, even though social media creators are not credentialed, they are more available and more relatable, which Hauser contended provides comfort to patients seeking answers. Until healthcare experts and scientists can bridge that gap, trust issues -- and their treat to credible health information -- could remain.

Building trust through medical communication

According to Hauser, scientists and healthcare leaders need to leverage the trust digital creators have cultivated to spread accurate medical information.

"The debate isn't whether credentialed or uncredentialed voices are more valid," Hauser wrote in her post. "It's about which voices are meeting people where they are."

As healthcare professionals seek to build patient trust, they might consider the role anecdotal storytelling can play in communication. When the healthcare messenger can sound and act like the patient, it is more likely the patient will listen.

Sara Heath has reported news related to patient engagement and health equity since 2015.

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