Trustworthy Institutions Research Articles

Why we should talk about institutional (dis)trustworthiness and medical machine learning.

The principle of trust has been placed at the centre as an attitude for engaging with clinical machine learning systems. However, the notions of trust and distrust remain fiercely debated in the philosophical and ethical literature. In this article, we proceed on a structural level ex negativo as we aim to analyse the concept of "institutional distrustworthiness" to achieve a proper diagnosis of how we should not engage with medical machine learning. First, we begin with several examples that hint at the emergence of a climate of distrust in the context of medical machine learning. Second, we introduce the concept of institutional trustworthiness based on an expansion of Hawley's commitment account. Third, we argue that institutional opacity can undermine the trustworthiness of medical institutions and can lead to new forms of testimonial injustices. Finally, we focus on possible building blocks for repairing institutional distrustworthiness.

Medical Mistrust Among Black Patients with Serious Illness: A Mixed Methods Study.

Medical mistrust among Black patients has been used to explain the existence of well-documented racial inequities at the end of life that negatively impact this group. However, there are few studies that describe patient perspectives around the impact of racism and discriminatory experiences on mistrust within the context of serious illness. To better characterize experiences of racism and discrimination among patients with serious illness and its association with medical mistrust. Seventy-two Black participants with serious illness hospitalized at an academic county hospital. This is a convergent mixed methods study using data from participant-completed surveys and existing semi-structured interviews eliciting participants' perspectives around their experiences with medical racism, communication, and decision-making. The experience of medical racism and its association with Group-Based Medical Mistrust (GBMM) scale scores, a validated measure of medical mistrust. Of the 72 Black participants, 35% participated in interviews. Participants were mostly men who had significant socioeconomic disadvantage, including low levels of wealth, income, and educational attainment. There were reported high levels of race-based mistrust in the overall GBMM scale score (mean [SD], 36.6 [9.9]), as well as high scores within the suspicion (14.2 [5.0]), group disparities in healthcare (9.9 [2.8]), and lack of support (9.1 [2.7]) subscales. Three qualitative themes aligned with the GBMM subscales. Participants expressed skepticism of healthcare workers (HCWs) and modern medicine, recounted personal experiences of discrimination in the medical setting, and were frustrated with poor communication from HCWs. This study found high levels of mistrust among Black patients with serious illness. Suspicion of HCWs, disparities in healthcare by race, and a lack of support from HCWs were overarching themes that influenced medical mistrust. Critical, race-conscious approaches are needed to create strategies and frameworks to improve the trustworthiness of healthcare institutions and workers.

Insights from the 2021 OECD Trust Survey: How people evaluate the trustworthiness of government institutions & implications for policymakers

The inaugural OECD Survey on the Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions asked respondents in 22 OECD countries to evaluate the trustworthiness of national and local governments and other public institutions as well as to report their perceptions and experiences with various public governance–related drivers of trust (factors likely to affect trust) in those institutions. The main drivers include the government’s competence (as indicated by its reliability and responsiveness) and government values, including integrity, openness, and fairness. The article highlights the key findings of the survey and of analyses exploring the impact of various drivers on trust. The results underscore that people are relatively satisfied with delivery of public services and governments’ reliability, but it is crucial to enhance citizens’ perceptions of governments’ responsiveness and their perceived ability to influence public decision-making. The article also addresses the policy implications of the research and describes ways some countries have already used the country-specific findings as a guide to developing policies for reinforcing their citizens’ trust.

Deployment of AI Tools and Technologies on Academic Integrity and Research

Academic integrity is a set of ethical ideals and values that guide the behavior of individuals in academic and educational settings. It encompasses honesty, trustworthiness, fairness, and a commitment to upholding the highest standards of ethical conduct in the quest for knowledge, learning, and research. Academic integrity is essential in maintaining the trustworthiness, reputation, and effectiveness of educational institutions and scholarly communities. Whereas, AI, or Artificial Intelligence, is a broad field of computer science that focuses on creating frameworks, software, or machines that can perform tasks that would typically require human intelligence. These tasks include problem-solving, learning from experience, understanding natural language, recognizing patterns, and making choices. AI systems aim to mimic or replicate human cognitive functions, and they can range from simple rule-based systems to highly complex, autodidactic neural networks. AI can significantly impact academic integrity and research in both positive and potentially challenging ways.

Trusting: Alone and together

ABSTRACT We study the problem of an agent continuously faced with the decision of placing or not placing trust in an institution. The agent makes use of Bayesian learning in order to estimate the institution’s true trustworthiness and makes the decision to place trust based on myopic rationality. Using elements from random walk theory, we explicitly derive the probability that such an agent ceases placing trust at some point in the relationship, as well as the expected time spent placing trust conditioned on their discontinuation thereof. We then continue by modeling two truster agents, each in their own relationship to the institution. We consider two natural models of communication between them. In the first (“observable rewards”) agents disclose their experiences with the institution with one another, while in the second (“observable actions”) agents merely witness the actions of their neighbor, i.e. placing or not placing trust. Under the same assumptions as in the single agent case, we describe the evolution of the beliefs of agents under these two different communication models. Both the probability of ceasing to place trust and the expected time in the system elude explicit expressions, despite there being only two agents. We therefore conduct a simulation study in order to compare the effect of the different kinds of communication on the trust dynamics. We find that a pair of agents in both communication models has a greater chance of learning the true trustworthiness of an institution than a single agent. Communication between agents promotes the formation of long-term trust with a trustworthy institution as well as the timely exit from a trust relationship with an untrustworthy institution. Contrary to what one might expect, we find that having less information (observing each other’s actions instead of experiences) can sometimes be beneficial to the agents.

Toward trustworthy COVID-19 interventions: Building vaccine trust through community-university partnerships.

Prior research identifies trust as critical to increase vaccine acceptance and uptake. However, few intervention studies have sought to develop or test strategies for bolstering vaccine-related trust. To address this gap, this exploratory study identifies features of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy interventions that can promote or undermine trust across three interconnected domains: institutional, interpersonal, and product (the vaccine itself). We draw on focus groups (N = 27 participants) with community and university partners involved with hosting COVID-19 testing and vaccine events in underserved Oklahoma communities. Focus groups explored participants' experiences serving community health needs and elicited feedback on proposed vaccine hesitancy interventions. Proposed interventions included two technology-based strategies (text message reminders and tablet-based testimonials and education) and one dialogue-based strategy (anti-body test interpretation). We find that community partners perceived local universities as trustworthy institutions because of their association with popular sports programs, academic credentials, and proximity, creating opportunities to address vaccine-related distrust through community-university partnerships. The most promising intervention strategies for building interpersonal trust included engaging in one-on-one dialogue and using autonomy enhancing approaches. Finally, interventions that successfully encouraged vaccine trust did so by incorporating personalized health information about individuals' potential level of protection and susceptibility to the COVID-19 virus. These findings can inform future public health efforts to create trustworthy vaccine hesitancy interventions.

THE PUBLIC TRUST IMPACT OF VIOLATIONS OF ETHICAL CODES IN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT DECISIONS

<p>This research explores the impacts resulting from severe breaches of ethical codes in the decisions of the Constitutional Court that have led to a drastic decline in public trust. This decline is considered a significant barrier to the progress and sustainability of Indonesia’s constitution in the future. These impacts not only affect the constitutional system but also permeate specific elements within society. It is a serious issue that can damage the integrity of the Constitutional Court, an institution that should uphold honesty and transparency in carrying out its duties and authorities. The Constitutional Court, which should be a fully trustworthy institution, is now perceived to have tarnished its image. Various new perspectives have emerged, measuring the breakdown of integrity within the Constitutional Court. The diminishing trust of the public signifies a wavering authority and independence of this institution. There have been numerous actions by the public showing signs of disappointment and regret towards the Constitutional Court. This calls for a comprehensive evaluation to eradicate the roots that have damaged the core of this institution. Such efforts need to be undertaken by all layers of society, accompanied by contributions and sacrifices, to safeguard and oversee that our constitution remains unharmed and leads to a better and sustainable constitutional future.</p><p>Keywords: Constitutional Court, Severe Breaches, Drastic Decline</p>

Trust in Tobacco Control

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) groups experience nicotine and tobacco (NT) related inequities that persist despite reductions in NT use across the general population. Research suggests that institutional trust has important implications for how public health policies are received by various publics, yet few studies have explored trust in tobacco control institutions, especially among SGM communities. Analysing narrative data from open-ended interviews with 100 young adults in California who currently or formerly smoked tobacco and identify in ways that classify them as SGM, we examine participants’ perceptions of tobacco control efforts in relation to characteristics of trustworthy institutions. Our findings suggest that trust in tobacco control institutions may be compromised by some of the tactics used to denormalize NT use, abstinence-only approaches to NT-related messaging and policymaking, and distrust of the broader establishment of which tobacco control is perceived to be a part. Highlighting unintended consequences of some current mainstream approaches to tobacco control, these findings are important to consider in the development of community-informed messaging strategies and policy interventions to address tobacco-related inequities among SGM populations.

Lies Have Short Legs: Brazilian Media Exposes Bolsonaro's Deceptive Claims Amidst Misinformation Surge

In an era marked by widespread misinformation and declining trust in institutions and journalism, the deceptive statements made by former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro have gained significant attention. However, it was only in the second year of his term, during the COVID-19 pandemic, that news outlets actively began to expose and denounce his false and misleading claims. This article presents a content analysis comparing press coverage of the following four pivotal moments in the Bolsonaro administration during the pandemic: his speech at the UN General Assembly in 2020, his national radio and TV address in March 2021, his speech to ambassadors in July 2022, and his interview with Jornal Nacional, the most-watched news program in Brazil, in August 2022. By examining articles and headlines from the country's three most prominent newspapers, including two leading fact-checking agencies, this study reveals a shift in media discourse with the term 'lie' being increasingly used. Our hypothesis is that journalism is striving to reclaim its role as a trustworthy institution.

Perspectives on COVID-19 Vaccination and Vaccine Passports in a Diverse Urban Adolescent Population: A Youth Participatory Mixed Methods Study

PurposeDisparities in youth COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and uptake have been documented in several countries, yet few studies have explored the attitudes and perceptions underlying vaccine-related decision-making among adolescent populations with unique sociocultural, environmental, and/or structural contexts that may influence vaccine uptake. MethodsThis study used data from surveys and semistructured interviews collected between January and March 2022 as part of an ongoing community-based research project in two ethnoculturally diverse, lower income neighborhoods of Montreal, Canada. Youth researchers designed and conducted interviews with unvaccinated adolescents, and thematic analysis was employed to explore attitudes and perceptions underlying vaccine-related decisions and opinions about vaccine passports. Survey data were used to describe sociodemographic and psychological determinants of COVID-19 vaccination. ResultsAmong 315 survey participants aged 14–17 years, most (74%) were fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Prevalence ranged from 57% among Black adolescents to 91% among South and/or Southeast Asian adolescents (34% difference, 95% confidence interval: 20–49). Qualitative and quantitative findings highlighted several misconceptions about the safety, effectiveness, and necessity of COVID-19 vaccines and adolescents' desire for trusted sources of information to address their concerns. Vaccine passports likely increased uptake, yet adolescents were strongly resistant to the policy, and for some, it may have fueled distrust of government and scientific institutions. DiscussionStrategies that increase the trustworthiness of institutions and foster genuine partnership with underserved youth may improve vaccine confidence and help ensure an effective, proequity recovery from COVID-19.

Political Orientation and Trust in the Courts

This study investigates the effect of political orientation on public trust in Hong Kong’s courts. In measuring institutional legitimacy, the prior literature, predominantly written in the US context, largely focuses on the police force and demographic factors. Building on previous studies of the role of procedural fairness in determining the degree of institutional trust, this article contributes to a strand of developing literature which highlights how political ideology may color one’s views of legal authorities. Based on a 2020 survey on public trust in Hong Kong’s courts, this article presents a sobering portrayal of a hitherto “most trustworthy institution” in Hong Kong’s deeply polarized and rapidly changing political environment.

A systematic review of empirical studies on trust between universities and society

ABSTRACT The perception of universities as trustworthy institutions has been challenged by heightened public distrust in science and public institutions. In this context, understanding trust relationships between higher education institutions and society could provide vital intelligence to safeguard and grow the increasingly disrupted higher education sector. The article presents a systematic review of empirical studies that focus on trust in higher education institutions. It aims to map research trends and empirical gaps to provide insights into the state of research in this area. The review found that most research has examined trust within the university context, with significantly less attention on trust between the universities and the broader societies they serve. Within the latter, trust relationships with business and industry domains have received greater empirical attention than those with community and government. These findings have implications for purposeful and meaningful trust-based capacity and capability building at individual and institutional levels.

Trust, trustworthiness, and relationships: ontological reflections on public trust in science

ABSTRACT There is much social scientific research dedicated to measuring and studying public trust. I examine the ways in which the notion of trust is implicitly conceptualised in such studies. I argue that there is a common ontological foundation in most research on the topic: trust is viewed as a phenomenon that is an attribute of individuals, intrapsychic, directed toward specific targets, and that is quantitative and measurable. I criticise this conceptualisation of trust and argue that it: (1) fails to consider the trustworthiness of individuals and institutions, (2) fails to recognise trust as a relational phenomenon and overlooks historical and material conditions that characterise relationships between people and institutions, and (3) lends itself to bureaucratic manipulation of publics rather than fostering authentic relationships of trust. I conclude that studies on trust need to be situated in larger frameworks that attend to the trustworthiness of actors and to relationships between them.

Partnering with immigrant families to promote language justice and equity in education.

Despite USfederal legislation mandates institutions to provide meaningful access and participation to students and families in educational settings, culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) families and caregivers of children in special education experience cultural and linguistic barriers. A Community Advisory Team (CAT) of parents, advocates, community interpreters and translators, researchers, and teachers explored CLD families' experiences and advocacy efforts. Critical bifocality and circuits of dispossession, privilege, and resistance informed the documentation of inequities and resistance to understand the linkages of structural arrangements of power. Focus groups with families (n = 21) speakers of Spanish, Portuguese, and Cantonese were conducted. Findings indicate perceived discrimination, poor and inadequate interpretation and translation services impact children's access to special education services, hinder family's communication with schools and reduce the perceptions of schools as trustworthy institutions. Families advocate relentlessly for their children and recommend schools listen to families and hire culturally and linguistically competent interpreters and translators. Community psychologists can make significant contributions to promote language justice in education settings through participatory approaches to inquiry that value CLD families' knowledge and expertise.

Political trust by individuals of low socioeconomic status: The key role of anomie

The socioeconomic status (SES) of individuals is related to their political trust. The higher their status, the more they trust the political system. This well-known relation is generally explained in terms of socialisation. The higher the SES, the more people are exposed to democratic values or interact with trustworthy institutions. This increases political interest, which increases political trust. In this study, we propose a complementary explanation: lower SES enhances the perception that the social fabric is breaking down (anomie), and this reduces political trust. We test this hypothesis by using structural equation modeling (SEM) on a representative survey (n = 1203) conducted in the Wallonia region of Belgium. That region appeared suited to explore our hypothesis because of its long-term economic difficulties. The results reveal that those of low SES have less political trust because they perceive more anomie in society. These results are consistent even when the alternative explanation is taken into account (the socialisation hypothesis). Moreover, the results also showed that a higher level of anomie reduced interpersonal trust which reduced political trust (serial mediation). These results highlight the key role of anomie when considering the relation of SES with political trust.

Servants of liquidation: The clerical staff at the First Debt Office in Sweden, c. 1719–1730

The extensive use of white collar workers, such as bookkeepers and clerks, played a crucial role in the formation of modern states during the early modern period. This article focuses on the formation of a Debt Office in Sweden, which was opened in 1719 in order to administer the liquidation of the debt accrued during the previous royal regime. By utilizing the available expertise that had been working on the debt market, it was relatively easy for the new parliamentary rule to found the office. The office became part of the credit system when it interacted with various creditors. The clerical staff helped the market to function by providing intermediation, but their role became increasingly contentious. By examining the clerical staff, we learn how the authorities tried to build a trustworthy institution. The case thereby offers another perspective on credible commitment than research which concentrates on formal political institutions.

Anxiety and trust in times of health crisis: How parents navigated health risks during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic in Denmark

In this article, we investigate how parents of children in primary school navigated risks in the context of COVID-19 mitigation policies during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Denmark, this group found itself at the front line of the reopening after an early lockdown, as primary schools were among the first institutions to reopen. This situation was discussed by the parents amid much controversy, which prompted us to investigate the strategies of different groups of parents within their institutional contexts. Based on qualitative interviews with 30 key informants, supplemented by a qualitative survey completed by 31 parents, collected between April and July 2020, we find three main types of strategies for dealing with pandemic health risks: (1) those involving trust, especially in schools and in teachers; (2) those primarily characterised by prioritising other aspects, such as the work-life balance; (3) and those containing overt or covert resistance strategies. Our findings demonstrate the pivotal role of the perceived trustworthiness of institutions (mainly schools) and professionals (mainly teachers) at the frontline for shaping parental risk navigation strategies. As our sample included asylum seekers whose resistance – unlike that of other parents employing resistance strategies – was met by an intervention, our analysis also sheds light on how social exclusion manifests itself in the Danish welfare state context during a pandemic.

Narratives of Outbreak and Survival in English-Language Cinema Prior to COVID-19

Efforts to curb the COVID-19 pandemic were hampered by the tendency of some Americans to disbelieve its seriousness, distrust social institutions, and defy public health recommendations. To contribute to understanding these responses, I look to one facet of the discursive environment faced by public health communicators: the last 25 years of commercially successful, English-language, epidemic-themed feature films. I coded a sample of 34 films for competing “outbreak narratives” and content related to evidence of serious disease, the trustworthiness of social institutions, and the prevention of infection. I find characters in films usually encounter diseases with alarming symptom profiles and infection and death rates nearing 100 percent. Social institutions are overwhelmingly portrayed as negligent or manifestly evil. And the primary method of protecting oneself and others from infection is murder. I conclude that the content of these films could influence public culture and sow disbelief, distrust, and defiance.

Moving beyond mistrust: Centering institutional change by decentering the white analytical lens.

The topic of Black mistrust of medical institutions and health care has received a great deal of attention over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, especially with the arrival of vaccines and the emergence of a gap in vaccination rates by race. This article examines current discourses and debates over medical mistrust, and describes the limitations of the mistrust framework for identifying and addressing the institutional change necessary to remedy racial health inequities. As numerous observers have pointed out, the mistrust discourse largely places the burden of change on historically exploited and mistreated populations, rather than on the medical institutions that committed the violations and continue the mistreatment that are often identified as sources of mistrust. However, even the analytic shift to focus on the trustworthiness of institutions narrows the scope of the issue to the relationships of medical institutions to specific communities. While the mistrust literature has made important contributions to centering and valuing Black perspectives, this framework delimits the focus to Black perceptions and behaviors rather than on medical institutions and the health care system. Whereas the predominately white analytic lens of bioethics scholarship has centered Black populations by making them the subject of study, this article draws a distinction between simply analyzing, versus meaningfully centering and deriving an analysis from the perspective of marginalized populations within scholarship. This article suggests moving beyond the mistrust framework and the assumption of white normativity to conduct the type of institutional analysis necessary for addressing racial health inequities.

Complex concepts with varying connotations: In search for conceptual definitions

One of the fundamental challenges for sociology is the interpretation of its key terms, which is determined by the fact that many words of everyday language and scientific discourse are the same despite implying a much higher level of generalization as sociological categories. Certainly, such challenges are more typical for the empirical research - when sociologists turn their theoretical concepts into sets of empirical indicators which have to be clear enough for the respondent to understand and answer the questionnaire and for the sociologist to interpret these answers correctly. Nevertheless, the lack of generally recognized conceptual definitions is no less important, because the general picture of social reality is necessarily made of them (the society is described as either fair, consisting of trustworthy institutions that provide opportunities for being happy, or in the opposite statements). The article presents a possible reconstruction of the strategy that sociologists use in the search for conceptual definitions for such complex concepts with varying connotations as love, happiness, trust and justice. This strategy consists of two steps: focus on the macro-sociological dimension of the phenomena under study as determining its various manifestations and everyday interpretations (the key step in the study of love and happiness); and identification of objective and subjective indicators of the phenomenon under study (the key step in the study of trust and justice). For instance, in the study of love and happiness, there is the obvious micro-sociological perspective that implies personal responsibility for being happy and loved, and the hidden macro-sociological perspective that implies social standards for identifying and achieving love and happiness; trust is defined as a source of social order, cooperation, institutional, organizational and everyday interactions, which reduces the level of uncertainty; in the searches for the conceptual definition of justice, there are two main approaches - the first approach considers justice as one of many grounds for developing some theoretical model; the second approach reconstructs justice either as an ideal political-philosophical model of social order or as a means of the comparative analysis of its practical implementations.