Health News:Decisions about our
health can be some of the most important we make in our lives.
When you
have a health concern, who do you turn to?
Education
and trust
A Wellcome
Trust survey recently found that 73% of people around the world would most
trust a doctor or nurse for medical advice. In the UK, that figure stands at
more than 90%.
According to
the survey, a person’s age and gender has no impact on whom they most trust for
medical advice; nor does recent internet use have any bearing.
Education is
the only factor measured that effects whom we trust the most to give medical
guidance.
Andrew
Dugan, from Gallup – the analytics company that conducted the global survey –
said: “People who had only completed primary education were much less likely
than those with the equivalent of a university or college degree to trust a
doctor or nurse the most.
This trend
was noticeable even after taking into account how wealthy a country is.”
More than a
quarter of people surveyed globally said they would most trust someone other
than a doctor or nurse for health advice. The most common alternative was
family and friends.
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In ten
countries – six of them in Africa – at least one in ten people place their
greatest trust in ‘traditional healers’ when seeking medical advice.
In Niger,
one in five people said they would trust a religious leader the most.
People in
these countries were typically among the least trusting of scientists, doctors
or nurses.
Health
misinformation in Africa has long been a concern. The fact-checking
organisation Africa Check was set up in the wake of misinformation spread in
Nigeria about the polio vaccine.
Africa
Check’s Lee Mwiti said the scale of false health claims that their teams
encounter in the four countries where they work is significant, among them
debunking quack cancer cures and rumours of “life-saving cough CPR”.
Mr Mwiti
said the spread of misinformation was “of great concern on the continent
because people do change their behaviour on the strength of their implied
claims”.
Social media
has given rise to a range of wellness vloggers and bloggers, dispensing health
advice despite limited medical experience.
Often search
engines play a key role when ruminating over a health concern – so do the big
tech firms do anything to ensure people seeking help online receive reliable
information?
In a
statement, Google said: “Our goal with Search is to deliver relevant results
from the most reliable sources available and, particularly for sensitive topics
like health, we have refined our systems to prioritise results from more
authoritative sources.”
Yet, when it
comes to vaccines, the survey suggests internet searches seem to fuel mistrust
in official advice.
“People who
have sought information about science, medicine or health in the last 30 days
are less likely to agree that vaccines are safe,” says Lara Clements, from the
Wellcome Trust.
“It raises
interesting questions about whether they are finding the information they need
or whether the information they are finding is making them more hesitant about
vaccine safety.”
Read more
about the results of the Wellcome Global Monitor.
People in
the UK showed relatively strong trust in vaccines, compared with the rest of
Europe.
Last year
Public Health England found that 93% of parents in England have confidence in
the immunisation program. Their survey asked which sources people trust for
information about immunisation: social media, the internet and the media in
general were trusted the least.
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