Upholding Trust in Health and Science

By Rita Colorito

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Turn on the news or scroll through social media and you’re bound to come across inaccurate or even blatant lies around health and science. With the assault on evidence-based information now underway at the highest levels of what were once bastions of truth and trust in medicine, physicians and clinicians can use all the help they can get to combat misinformation and disinformation.

To that end, WSMA Reports spoke with Helen Burstin, MD, MPH, MACP, to learn how the Coalition for Trust in Health and Science, a nonpartisan nonprofit founded in March 2023, is creating and using an evidence-based knowledge infrastructure to benefit physicians and their patients. The coalition brings together more than 90 diverse leading health, health care, and scientific organizations to promote trust in health and science and challenge false information. Dr. Burstin serves on the coalition’s board of directors. She’s also the CEO of the Council of Medical Specialty Societies.

WSMA Reports: What was the impetus for the coalition?

Dr. Burstin: It was very much in response to what happened during the pandemic. We saw a profound impact on the nation’s trust in health and science. There were a lot of differences across different populations.

Reed Tuckson, MD, one of the co-founders of the coalition, had done a lot of work understanding the impact of lack of trust in the African-American community around vaccination. There was a sense that we need to do what we can to ensure that experts who really bring the best evidence-based information to the table know how to get that information out and appropriately shared.

There was an opportunity to say, “How do we tackle this?” It was clear there’s no one group who could take this on. The idea was, could the coalition be built in such a way that we pulled in the whole ecosystem that could make a difference? Whether that’s medicine, science, nursing, even industry, we all have a role to play in thinking about how we can address this erosion of trust in health and science.

What are some of the coalition’s goals?

Our overall mission is to make sure that those seeking information, whether that’s an individual, a family, or a community, have the information they need to make appropriate health decisions. In the short term, to do whatever we can to keep the conversations open and flowing across different groups … to understand what’s driving some of this catalyzing dialogue. For example, Dr. Tuckson literally engaging with “Make America Healthy Again” moms to better understand where they’re coming from. We can’t figure out how to counter some of this if we don’t really understand the genesis for it.

There’s a lot of interest in us serving as thought partners, providing conferences, podcasts, and tools for the field. My group, the Council of Medical Specialty Societies, works with the coalition and its founding member—the NewCourtland Center for Transitions and Health at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing—to go through all the known strategies that physicians and others could employ with their patients to counter disinformation. What’s interesting here is there is a real science to how to communicate.

What tools does the coalition offer for physicians to empower them to build trust?

The coalition has many resources on its website, including evidence-based reviews of different strategies that help us move the needle on both fighting misinformation and improving trust. Some strategies have been around for quite a long time. For example, serving as a trusted messenger, where you gently explain to the patient that part of the information they’re hearing may not be correct.

Coalition members have access to a biweekly lunch learning series where we feature experts. They’re often 15- to 20-minute discussions. They provide quick, digestible strategies you can use on your own or with everyone else in your practice.

We encourage members of the WSMA to sign up for our mailing list for content-rich newsletters and information about events open to nonmembers (see sidebar).

On our website, we also have resources pulled from across our 100 members on what works—strategies on pre-bunking or debunking—or how you can serve as a trusted messenger with your patients. For example, the Council of Medical Specialty Societies and the National Academy of Medicine worked with YouTube and came up with a set of criteria to help viewers identify which sources are credible. Some of these things really work. The evidence is strong. A lot of them haven’t been fully tested in health care yet, but there are real opportunities for us to think about how they might.

What strategies do you find work?

Learning what patients are reading, what they’re concerned about. Listening and reviewing the sources that they’re seeing. Even saying something like, “Can you share your sources with me? Can we have a follow-up conversation to review some of what you’re seeing? Perhaps I can share some of what I know in terms of the science.”

A lot of this is doing what we all know well, which is building relationships with our patients. It’s using strategies proven in terms of good clinical care—being an active listener and thinking about how we can use motivational interviewing to keep the dialogue open, rather than having a patient go down a pathway where they’re just like, “He’s just not listening to me. I’m not going back.”

You mentioned pre-bunking and debunking. Can you explain those?

With pre-bunking, it’s the idea of being proactive and helping inoculate patients and people to understand when they’re being exposed to falsehoods. How are you being manipulated? How do you have them recognize it, think about it, and use examples to refute it? That’s the parallel tool to debunking, which is the idea of correcting lies, to say what you’re seeing is not necessarily the truth or maybe isn’t based on the best possible information.

What strategies simply don’t work or should be avoided?

One of the cautions is any attempt to push back on a patient in a way that closes the dialogue. We know a lot from the literature on how to communicate effectively, including the work of professor Julia Minson at the Harvard Kennedy School, for example, about disagreeing better. She makes the case that the more you can keep the dialogue open, even if the patient disagrees with you at first, the better off we’ll be. We have to be very careful about not coming across as just disagreeing with you. That tends to close the conversation.

Is there something that physician organizations can do to further the dialogue?

Some of it is being open to having those conversations. Put things on your walls that say things like, “Have a question about vaccines? Ask me.”

Encourage being personal in the way physicians talk to a patient about vaccination, not just saying, “I really think you should get the flu shot,” but also, “All of my family has been vaccinated for flu.” Patients respect that level of interpersonal dialogue. The beauty is this is very much a team sport. I don’t think all this has to be done by the physician. There are opportunities for the clinic, the health system, and all the different health care practitioners within a clinic to play their role.

What role does social media play in the erosion of trust and the efforts to counter it?

There’s no question that social media has played a very large role, providing patients information sometimes that may not be fully credible. There have been some efforts, for example, on the part of YouTube, where they will now bring up the most trusted, credible source of health information first, rather than the viral source.

Physicians can also use social media to teach patients where they can go for credible sources. The WSMA and your specialty societies all have resources that you could recommend. There’s a real opportunity for physicians to be positive forces in the social media environment. Whether you’re comfortable doing videos like Dr. Mike or just pushing back on your community and Facebook page, those are all important opportunities. Dr. Todd Wolynn and his team at The Trusted Messenger Program are great resources (see “Key Resources”, below).

Engage in your community. Go to those school board hearings, go to health department hearings. Lending your voice as a credible source of health information is probably one of the most important things we can do. Counter what might be happening by providing what you know is evidence-based, accessible, and understandable information.

What’s your best advice for physicians and clinicians who feel overwhelmed by lack of trust in science and health care?

Despite all the concerns about what’s happening in terms of trust in medicine and science, patients continue to trust their physician more than anyone.

Rita Colorito is a freelance writer specializing in health care.

This article was featured in the March/April 2026 issue of WSMA Reports, WSMA’s print magazine.

Key Resources

The Coalition for Trust in Health and Science

trustinhealthandscience.org

Resources on what works in health and science messaging. Sign up for the coalition’s mailing list under About, then Contact Us.

“Why Should I Trust You?” podcast, YouTube

whyshoulditrustyou.net

This weekly series, a collaboration between physicians and journalists, looks at the breakdown in trust for science and public health and how we can trust each other again.

The Trusted Messenger Program

trustedmessengerprogram.org

Recommended by the Coalition for Trust in Health and Science, this program offers comprehensive, field-tested education, delivered online or in person, designed to improve your skills and strengthen your status as a life-changing trusted messenger.

WSMA Social Media Ambassador Program

wsma.org/social-media

If you are a social media user, you can help amplify trusted, evidence-based public and general health messages with your peers and the public online using our ready-made social media toolkits. Each toolkit features links to resources, sample posts, and graphics that can be used out of the box or edited to fit your community.