Where Do Americans Get Health

Pew finds Americans route health information through providers, websites, peers, social media, and AI, with trust and accuracy checks becoming the central bottleneck.

1. Frame 1Americans turn health questions through providers, websites, peers, social media, and AI, putting patients under accuracy pressure.
2. Frame 2Flow map: 85% use providers; 60% use major health websites; 66% use similar-patient stories.
3. Frame 3Trust gate: 65% of provider users rate information highly accurate, higher than any other source.
4. Frame 4Failure mode: social media reaches 36%, but 47% of its users rate the information low accuracy.
5. Frame 5Bottleneck: half of adults say checking health-information accuracy is at least somewhat difficult.
6. Frame 6Verification path: when claims conflict, compare sources before acting; 54% say deciding what to trust is difficult.