Trust in Health Care Under Pressure

York City. Richard, great to have you back with us. How are you? Thanks? Really great? And you know, for me, for the two of you, the most important thing is the pandemic really reduced people's confidence in the healthcare system and they really find it difficult to get medical advice that's not politicized, and that has a huge consequence on their behavior because low trust individuals actually have much less

likelihood of getting vaccinated or even going for checkups regularly. Well, what can you tell us about where this mistrust comes from? And you know, I'm a little worried about where it comes from. I mean, I imagine a lot of it comes from the messaging. Some part of it comes from politics, meaning Republicans are less than Democrats trusting. Um. Some part of it comes from from race. Blacks and Hispanics are less trusting than white some part of it. You'll be surprised.

Actually urban people are you know, more more trusting than than rural Uh. And the problem is Internet um searches is the number one source of information for the unvaccinated, not experts, and it just means that you get urban

myths passed around. Yeah, it's interesting. I have members of my family in the medical community, and it's like, you've got to be careful about dr google um because you know, you all of a sudden think you have something and then you walk into a doctor's office and this is what you say you have, and you know you've got to really rely on the experts in the science, you know, whether it's the pandemic or anything else that's out there. Um,

it isn't. On that point. Two thirds of people say that there's a gap between how well they take care of their health and how well it should be taken care of. So they're self aware. But information is equal to cost in driving that gap. In other words, you know, in America, under half the people say they consume health information once a week, which is crazy. Um, and how do they feel it? Well? As you say, they go online and or they just rely on themselves, which is spooky,

which is interesting. You know. I was thinking about having done a couple of virtual doctor visits and was pretty skeptical running into it. Are going into it? I realized actually how great it can be if you're busy or you know the access it can give you. It's not perfect and it won't work for everything. Um, there's nothing like face to face. But I do wonder, you know. I think we thought to some extent that this would be a great game changer. What's the thought on technology

and medicine and access. What we found is that the most trusted source for people who are basically distrusting is my doctor or pharmacists, people close to them, and also Carol employers And that's really important for the listeners of this show because they are the leading believable source of health information. So my employer is is critical. Wow. So what's the recommendation when you take all this together, Richard, what are the takeaways for as to change this? We

have to we have to be through this information. But should it be employers who are the ones who do this because not everybody trust their employer. Here's the thing, Um, we have to build trust in the health ecosystem. You know, we have low trust in government right now, and therefore it's on my employer, and it's on my employer influencing good health choices, giving reliable information, giving people incentives to their health. Um. And we have also address the disparities

and health outcomes. You know, people in lower income neighborhoods, etcetera. Um, they have a two to one worse outcome for COVID, partly because their frontline workers and also partly because they don't have equal access to our docks. Well, it's interesting. Well, I was thinking about the work shifting summit that we did last week for Bloomberg Live. And I've talked with Franco Studas, overt Cisco Chief People, Policy and Purpose Officer.

She's a senior you know, executive VP there, and so you know, in the c suite, the mental well being has certainly been something that company, certainly at Cisco and elsewhere, that they are taking seriously. UM and and understand their role in it. Hey, Richard, before we go, just got about a minute or so left. We'd be remiss if we didn't ask you. You talked to the global corporate community on a regular basis. The Russian invasion of Ukraine?

What does it mean longer term? Our companies going to step away from Russia as they need to as required by sanctions, but also stay away longer term. I think that they're being pushed by their employees and by their consumers to say we're out. Um. And three companies have

made that choice. And the obvious ones were the energy companies who were joint ventures with Russian state companies, but then it became the tech companies and financial services, and then more more recently people in QSR, restaurants and so Um. This is a dramatic a move by companies that I can remember, Um, since South African sanctions in the seventies and eighties during apartheid. Is it permanent? I think it is certainly permanent, given the state of affairs in the

Garden government in Russia. Yeah. I mean I have a hard time seeing how some of these companies can say, wait a second, okay, putin you know, whatever happens next, Yeah, we're gonna go back in. Whatever that looks like and whatever. You know how long that takes, well, especially if this war goes on for another couple of weeks and you know, Kiev gets destroyed and there you know, thousands of casualties and five million people who have had to immigrate. It

has all the aspects of a complete mess. And companies don't want to be part of a mess. All right, Thank you so much, Richard be well. Richard Edelman, chief executive officer at Edelman on the phone in New York City, out with their latest trust barometer here in two special report Trust in Healthcare, really looking at that issue specifically,