Do you want to avoid the hassle of traveling with your printed poster? IAPHS2026 is pleased to make poster printing available to you through our supplier PosterSessionOnline. Your poster will be professionally reviewed, printed and shipped directly to Portland and you will be able to pick it up from the Poster desk. Click here to learn more.
Primary Submission Category: Structural factors
A Meta-Analysis of Trust in Police and its Relationship to Trust in the Medical System Over Time
Authors: Caitlin McMurtry, Nathalia Gutierrez Sacasa,
Presenting Author: Caitlin McMurtry*
Polling data indicates that trust in U.S. institutions, especially those related to policing and healthcare, have declined over the past four decades, but these trends have not unfolded evenly across time or population. The death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, 2014 and the subsequent popularization of the Black Lives Matter movement marked a consequential turning point in public discourse on policing, drawing sustained national attention to racial disparities in policing and their relationship to health and civic life. Cross-sectional studies suggest that trust in these areas may be directly related, as experiences of police brutality are associated with lower levels of trust in medical institutions (Alang, McAlpine, and Hardeman 2020) and greater odds of unmet need for medical care (Alang et al. 2021). However, it is unclear whether these trends are linked longitudinally. Even less is known about whether these trends in trust vary by race or ethnicity. This study uses a systematic review and meta-analysis approach to analyze archival polling data, measuring changes in police confidence over more than three decades and the changing relationship between institutional confidence in police and the medical system. This approach allows us to test whether rising distrust in police is associated with the popularization of the Black Lives Matter movement (and the state violence that gave rise to it). We also test whether police and medical mistrust is greater among respondents of different races and ethnicities over time.