Trust as a Social Determinant of Health

Trust is key to building strong relationships between patients and providers, but new research indicates that trust has an outsized impact on public health as well. A new Advisory Board article by Rachel Zuckerman and Andrew Mohama examines the interplay between health disparity and trust between patients and the greater medical establishment. As they report, even the language used by public health experts when discussing the topic reveals the bias that fuels distrust within marginalized communities.

According to the article, “When we implicate the patient, it leads health care leaders to ask, ‘What can we do if they choose not to trust us?’ There seems to be a bit of blame-shifting, which is made even more egregious by gaslighting. For example, some people discuss how mistrust in the Black community stems solely from the Tuskegee study. These conversations can involve covert (and sometimes overt) racist messaging about how people are dramatizing one incidence and are refusing to move on from something that took place 50 years ago. When marginalized communities experience these remarks, it only drives further mistrust.”

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(Source: Advisory Board, March 16^th, 2022)