Individual's Dis-Trust in the Health Care System and Believes That They Will Get Best Treatment: A Study Based on Data from 30 Issp Member Countries

Confidence is the belief that one can rely on someone or something; it is especially important in terms of the availability and accessibility of healthcare services. An individual’s confidence in the health care system is an important indirect indicator of people’s trust in government policies. This study is an attempt to understand the heterogeneity in the people's trust in the health care system and how confident they are that they will get the best treatment, as these are the key measures of health system performance. In order to understand the socioeconomic, demographic and geographic correlates of individuals’ belief that they will get best treatment and level of trust on country’s healthcare system, the study utilizes widely used and globally well accepted data from the 'International Social Survey Programme (ISSP)’ Health & Health Care - II (Survey conducted in 2021 and data released in September 2024) interviewed 44,549 individuals from 30 member countries. There are demographic, socioeconomic, geographical characteristics which includes age, marital status, disability, health insurance, willingness to pay a high tax, income, religious status, education, place of living, public fund, doctor's trust, and country dummies are the other factors that affect the analysis. We conducted descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate analyses in this study. The logit models' results suggest that people's confidence in health care varies across countries and with individual demographic, financial, and geographic conditions. The findings suggest that the individuals’ characteristics, such as age, marital status, disability, health insurance, income, religion, education, and place of living, are significantly associated with their belief that they will get best treatment or not and confidence in the health care system. Understanding individuals' trust across the globe, along with individual and household socioeconomic characteristics, will assist policymakers in formulating country-specific policies that target individuals who lack confidence and are not receiving treatment.