People don't trust health information on social media, but they still use it

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-07-01 01:00

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A survey of US adults has found that people who use social media are engaging with health information, with more than 20% even making health decisions based on social media. The team surveyed over 7,000 people between February and March 2026 and found making health decisions based on social media did not differ by chronic disease status – suggesting it’s not just people struggling to manage diseases who are using social media to help guide their health decisions. Interestingly, 80% of respondents also reported distrust, meaning people were still making health decisions despite not fully trusting the information they’re seeing.

News release

From: JAMA

Use of Social Media for Health Information Among US Adults

About The Study: In this nationally representative survey, the majority of U.S. adults using social media reported some engagement with health-related information on these platforms. Social media has become a major venue for health information, yet confidence in its accuracy remains limited. This disconnect may reflect features of platforms optimized for engagement over accuracy. Importantly, more than 20% of people made health decisions based on social media, despite almost 80% reporting distrust, suggesting exposure may influence behavior, even when reliability is questioned.

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Journal/
conference: JAMA

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Yale School of Medicine, USA

Funder: Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Khera reported receiving grants from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute on Aging (R01AG089981), the NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (R01HL167858, K23HL153775), Doris Duke Foundation (2022060), BridgeBio Pharma, Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Novo Nordisk; previously serving on an advisory board for BridgeBio Pharma; serving on the steering committee for the FocusHTG Registry (funded by Ionis Pharmaceuticals); being a coinventor on US pending patent applications (WO2023230345A1, US20220336048A1, 63/484,426, 63/508,315, 63/ 580,137, 63/606,203, 63/619,241, 63/562,335, 63/346,610) outside the submitted work; and being a cofounder of Ensight-AI and Evidence2Health, precision health platforms to improve evidence-based cardiovascular care. No other disclosures were reported.

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