Sociology of Trust In Relation to Health and Healthcare

In increasingly complex and ever-changing times, sociologists argue that the public look towards so-called ‘expert systems’ (e.g. public health system, science, politics) to anticipate and predict the future, thereby allowing the public to make decisions on the basis of trustworthy information provided from within these expert systems.

Both theoretical and empirical literatures point to the idea that contemporary society is bound up with decreasing levels of trust. This declining trust has been witnessed in health care alongside other institutions. Declining public trust has been linked to increased questioning about and confidence in science and experts to ‘have the right answers’, and the proliferation of information in the internet and social media. When this public questioning and distrust is applied to health, one may argue that health professionals are no longer able to be regarded as the ‘experts’ around health and illness, especially with the advent of the provision of health advice and even health ‘care’ via AI. Within a contemporary epoch fueled by mis/dis-information, fake news and the ever developing, widening and deepening impacts of AI, uncertainty is reified and trust becomes an ever-more difficult thing to gain, keep or restore.

We welcome papers on contemporary theoretical and methodological ways of understanding and explaining trust and empirical analyses of the impact of trust on health and healthcare. We are particularly interested in papers which help us traverse different geographical, institutional and cultural landscapes, shining lights on the ways in which trust is shaped, blocked or advanced.