Falo, Dominick
(2024)
Effective Messaging Can Improve Public Trust.
Master Essay, University of Pittsburgh.
Abstract
There has been a declining amount of faith and trust between the general public and public health organizations, specifically in how the public perceives government communication sources and healthcare systems. Preserving and strengthening a trusting and transparent relationship between health providers and their community is fundamental for improving healthcare access, quality, and outcomes. This relationship is essential for patient-centered care and vital for promoting community health and well-being.
This essay aims to evaluate why this relationship has and continues to weaken and how to develop solutions that restore trust immediately and effectively. To first illustrate this concern, I identify evidence of the United States population’s declining confidence in domestic health systems and organizations through community responses to COVID-19 vaccination efforts, related vaccine hesitancy, and overall community responses to public health messaging and recommendations. Next, I consider frameworks for the public health system and organizational communication strategies and how the resulting messages are developed and delivered. From this evaluation, I explore why the messaging did not resonate well with some audiences, demonstrated by an increasing distrust towards health systems at an organizational level. Then, I explore why this distrust has seemingly not translated to an individual level, observed from higher trust levels associated with one-on-one relationships between health providers and individuals.
As a result of this exploration, I suggest how communication approaches at an individual level can be implemented at an organizational level, resulting in a stronger relationship between health providers and the community. By analyzing the structure through which public health messages are crafted and delivered by public healthcare systems and the factors that influence their reception by the populations they serve, health organizations and providers gain perspective for strategies to improve public trust.
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