Public health has always depended on trust. People need to trust their doctor enough to ask questions. They need to trust local health departments enough to follow guidance. They need to trust public institutions enough to believe that recommendations are meant to protect them, not control them. But a new global report suggests that trust in health information is not just weakening. It is being reshaped by political division, information overload, artificial intelligence, and a growing belief that personal experience can rival formal expertise.

And we can’t continue shouting into the void.

The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report on Trust and Health surveyed more than 16,000 people across 16 countries between February 28 and March 11, 2026. Its central finding is unsettling for anyone working in public health: many people now experience health information as fragmented, contested, and exhausting. Two in three respondents said their country is divided on key healthcare issues, and among those who saw division, 52 percent said people are losing trust in the healthcare system because of it. Another 45 percent said the government is losing credibility on health issues, while 44 percent said people are needlessly suffering.

That should make every public health professional pause. The challenge is no longer only whether people have access to accurate information. The challenge is whether people believe anyone has the standing to help them make sense of it.

The Public Is Not Ignorant. It Is Overloaded.

A common mistake in public health communication is assuming that people who reject guidance simply lack information. The Edelman report pushes back against that idea. People holding divisive health beliefs are not necessarily disconnected from health information. In fact, the report finds the opposite. Those who believe more divisive health claims are more likely to consume traditional health news, seek health news from different political perspectives, and consult AI platforms for answers to health questions.

This matters because it changes the nature of the communication problem. If someone is uninformed, the solution may be education. If someone is overloaded, the solution is guidance. If someone is surrounded by competing claims, the solution is not simply another fact sheet. It is a trusted relationship, repeated exposure, humility, and help in sorting through what applies to their life.

The report examined several controversial health claims, including claims about childhood vaccinations, fluoride, raw milk, acetaminophen use during pregnancy, animal protein, and vaccines being used for population control. Across 13 markets, 70 percent of respondents said at least one of these claims was true. Thirty percent said three or more were true. These beliefs crossed age, political, and educational lines. They were not confined to one party, one country, one generation, or one education level.

That finding is important. Public health often treats misinformation as something that belongs to “other people.” But the report suggests that the boundaries are much blurrier. Most people are navigating a confusing health information environment. Many are mixing formal medical advice with AI answers, social media content, family experience, personal stories, and peer recommendations. That does not make them irrational. It means public health is competing in a crowded marketplace of influence.

Doctors Still Matter, But They Are No Longer Alone.

One of the most encouraging findings is that doctors remain highly trusted. Across the 16 countries, 80 percent of respondents said they trust their doctor to tell the truth about health issues and how to protect public health. Medical scientists and experts also remained highly trusted at 73 percent. By comparison, trust was much lower for government leaders, healthcare CEOs, journalists, and CEOs.

But the story is not as simple as “people trust doctors, so doctors should just correct misinformation.” The report shows that healthcare providers now operate in a wider ecosystem of influence. People are listening to doctors, but also to family and friends, social media creators, people with similar health conditions, spiritual leaders, and AI platforms.

Among those with more divisive health beliefs, this wider circle becomes even more important. The report found that people in this group were more likely to consider lived experience, past personal benefit, trusted peer endorsement, and even social media following as signs of health expertise. Formal academic training still mattered, but it was no longer the only credential that counted.

For public health, this is a major strategic insight. Expertise has not disappeared, but it must now travel through relationships. A doctor’s recommendation may be strengthened when it is echoed by a local community leader, a patient advocacy organization, a culturally trusted messenger, or a peer who has faced the same decision. Public health cannot rely only on institutional authority. It must build networks of credibility.

AI Is Becoming a Health Advisor Whether We Are Ready or Not.

The report also highlights a fast-moving shift: people are using artificial intelligence to manage their health. Across the 16 countries surveyed, 35 percent of respondents said they use AI in some way to manage their health or make health-related decisions. Among AI health users, 84 percent said they use it to get immediate answers to general health questions, 81 percent use it for sleep, exercise, or nutrition recommendations, 78 percent use it for treatment suggestions, and 78 percent use it to help interpret medical test results.

This does not mean AI is replacing clinicians. But it does mean AI is increasingly part of the patient journey before, after, and sometimes instead of contact with the healthcare system. The report found that 64 percent of respondents believe someone without formal medical training but skilled at using AI can perform at least one medical task as well as, or better than, a doctor. That includes answering general medical questions, triaging care, determining treatment or medication, diagnosing illness, and even performing basic medical procedures.

Public health cannot ignore this. AI tools are already shaping how people interpret symptoms, weigh risks, understand lab results, and decide whether to seek care. Some of this may be helpful, especially for people who face barriers to access. But it also raises serious questions about quality, equity, privacy, safety, and overconfidence.

The most interesting finding may not be that people use AI. It is why they find it useful. Among AI health users, respondents were more likely to say AI was nonjudgmental, easy to understand, and sensitive to their personal constraints than their human healthcare providers. Human providers were rated more highly on accountability, but AI had advantages in tone, accessibility, and perceived empathy.

That is a warning and an opportunity. If people turn to AI because it feels less judgmental, easier to understand, and more responsive to their daily realities, then public health and healthcare systems need to learn from that experience. The answer is not to dismiss AI users as careless. The answer is to ask why existing systems so often feel rushed, confusing, shaming, or disconnected from people’s real lives.

Rebuilding Trust Requires a Different Communication Model.

The Edelman report argues that health communicators and providers need to become guides, not just authoritative voices. That phrase captures a major shift in what public health communication now requires. A guide does not simply announce the correct answer. A guide helps people navigate uncertainty, weigh tradeoffs, connect evidence to lived experience, and make decisions they can act on.

This is especially important when people hear recommendations that contradict what they already believe. The report found that many people need to hear a recommendation multiple times from trusted sources before accepting it. For those with many divisive health beliefs, 72 percent said they would believe a recommendation that contradicted their beliefs only after hearing it two or more times from sources they trust.

That means one press release will not rebuild trust. One myth-busting graphic will not undo years of confusion. One social media post will not compete with the constant stream of peer advice, algorithmic content, AI responses, and political messaging people encounter every day.

Trust is built through repetition, consistency, humility, and presence. The report found that when people have doubts about a treatment or health behavior, they want experts and providers to understand their life situation, admit they may not have all the answers, avoid trying to prove them wrong, provide examples of recommendations that have worked for others, and be present in the community.

That is not a soft strategy. It is a practical one. People are more likely to follow guidance when they feel seen rather than scolded. They are more likely to consider new information when it comes from someone who respects their concerns. They are more likely to change behavior when advice fits their time, money, transportation, caregiving responsibilities, culture, and prior experiences with healthcare.

Public Health Needs to Broker Trust Across Differences.

One of the strongest findings in the report is that 69 percent of respondents said they are hesitant or unwilling to trust someone who relies on different facts and different sources of information. That is a profound challenge for public health. Health guidance depends on some shared reality. But shared reality is becoming harder to maintain.

The report suggests that organizations may earn more trust by helping people cooperate around shared solutions rather than simply taking sides in divisive health debates. When asked what action by a business would most increase trust during a divisive health issue, the top response was encouraging people to cooperate in finding solutions without taking sides.

For public health agencies, nonprofits, healthcare systems, and community coalitions, this has real implications. The goal cannot always be immediate agreement on every belief. Sometimes the first goal is a shared outcome. Parents may disagree about vaccine policy, but still want children to be safe. Communities may disagree about government authority but still want clean water, fewer overdoses, safer housing, and access to care. Patients may distrust national institutions but still trust a local nurse, pharmacist, CHW, pastor, coach, or family doctor.

Public health can work with those openings. It can convene people around shared goals. It can elevate trusted local messengers. It can create spaces where people ask questions without being mocked. It can acknowledge uncertainty without surrendering scientific standards. It can build communication strategies that match how people actually make decisions.

The Lesson for Public Health: Trust Is Infrastructure.

Public health often talks about infrastructure in terms of data systems, laboratories, workforce, funding, and emergency preparedness. Those are essential. But trust is infrastructure too. Without trust, surveillance data may be ignored. Vaccine recommendations may be rejected. Emergency alerts may be doubted. Prevention campaigns may be filtered through suspicion. Clinical guidance may be outweighed by a TikTok video, a chatbot answer, or a friend’s story.

The Edelman report should not be read as a reason for despair. It should be read as a call to modernize public health communication. People are not waiting passively for official guidance. They are actively searching, comparing, testing, and interpreting health information across many sources. Some of those sources are reliable. Some are not. Some are human. Some are algorithmic. Some are credentialed. Some are personal. All of them shape behavior.

The way forward is not to abandon expertise. It is to make expertise more relational, more understandable, more humble, and more connected to everyday life. Doctors remain trusted. Scientists remain trusted. Local health voices still matter. But public health must stop assuming that credibility automatically flows from credentials to action.

In this fractured health information landscape, the winning public health strategy is not louder correction. It is better guidance. It is repeated communication from trusted messengers. It is partnership with communities. It is designing messages for people who are not empty vessels, but overwhelmed decision-makers trying to protect themselves and the people they love.

The public health question of the next decade may not be “How do we fight misinformation?” It may be “How do we help people decide who and what to trust?” The answer will shape whether public health can meet the next crisis before trust breaks down even further.

How This Week in Public Health Is Helping Solve This Problem

At This Week in Public Health, we are building for this exact moment. The public does not need more noise. Public health professionals do not need another overwhelming feed of disconnected articles, opinions, and alerts. They need trusted, readable, well-organized evidence that helps them understand what matters and act on it.

Our work is designed to make public health knowledge easier to find, understand, and use. Each week, we scan new research, identify articles that matter for practice, and translate them into clear summaries written for real people, not just specialists. We focus on what the evidence says, why it matters, and how it connects to the decisions public health professionals, community organizations, funders, and health leaders face every day.

We also recognize that trust is built through consistency. By showing up week after week with plain-language, evidence-based public health information, This Week in Public Health helps create a steadier information environment. We are not trying to replace doctors, public health agencies, or community leaders. We are trying to support them by making credible information more accessible, more shareable, and more useful.

In a world where people are overwhelmed by conflicting claims, AI-generated answers, and fragmented sources of influence, This Week in Public Health offers a different model: curated evidence, human judgment, transparent synthesis, and practical communication. Our goal is simple but urgent. We want to help people who care about public health cut through the noise, strengthen trust, and make better decisions for the communities they serve.