About a quarter of people worldwide say they believe that raw milk is healthier than pasteurized milk, that use of acetaminophen during pregnancy causes autism, and that vaccines are used for population control.

These are a few of the harmful health claims that were surveyed in the 5th annual Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: Trust and Health. The report was authored by the Edelman Trust Institute. The think tank, which is part of the Edelman global communications firm, studies shifts in trust across institutions, geographies, and society. 

​The Trust Barometer queried people across 16 countries, including the United States, Canada, and Mexico: Roughly 1,000 people per country were surveyed, for a total of 16,009 respondents. The margin of error was plus or minus 1 percentage point for the entire survey and plus or minus 4.1 percentage points for country-specific data.

The survey found that divisive beliefs about health are extremely common: Seven in 10 people globally had at least one view contrary to medical science. Respondents who held these views cut across age, political, and educational spectrums—though divisive beliefs were most common among younger survey respondents and those with right-leaning political beliefs.

Political divisiveness drives misinformation 

The ideological divide stems from how health policy issues have been discussed and presented in the United States since the passage of the Affordable Care Act back in 2010, said Sarah Gollust, PhD, who researches the intersections of communication, politics, and health policy at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

“The COVID-19 experience only accelerated both the real ways in which health issues became partisan, but also how they are now perceived by the public,” said Gollust.

The COVID-19 experience only accelerated both the real ways in which health issues became partisan, but also how they are now perceived by the public.

Gollust noted that 86% of respondents from the United States say the country is divided over health issues. This is more than any other country, with India and Mexico tying for second at 73%.

To address the misinformation beliefs revealed in the survey, Gollust said policymakers must also confront polarization and political divisiveness.

People still trust their doctors

A bright spot is that 80% of survey respondents said their doctor was a trusted source of health information, while 73% said the same of medical scientists and other experts. This doesn’t surprise Jennifer Reich, PhD, a sociologist at the University of Colorado Denver and author of Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines.

Reich noted that a byproduct of the turmoil among federal health agencies in the United States is that some people are waiting to see if things become clearer later.

“We are definitely seeing this on the vaccine landscape,” she said.

This seems to align with the report’s finding that people’s confidence in making health decisions declined from 61% in 2025 to 51% in 2026.

Reich also cautioned that people’s experiences and views are not necessarily the same as their decisions or behaviors. For example, she noted that there are many reasons to distrust pharmaceutical companies given past malfeasance. But when medications are lifesaving or life-improving, people usually accept them irrespective of their distrust.