Trust is the glue of a healthy society. A healthy society does not just mean healthy people. It also means a healthy democracy. Recent crises have challenged both and made us understand how important is trust in supporting resilience and essential transformations.
It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the anniversary gathering of the Tallinn Charter, where our focus today is on trust and transformation. This is a needed follow-up to the principles of solidarity, equity, and participation that the charter laid out 15 years ago. These principles have proven to be the keystones of resilient and sustainable health systems.
But not just health systems. I believe the transformations in health systems can serve as a model for building resilient and sustainable societies at large. This shift is vital since contemporary challenges, such as climate change, impact all aspects of the society.
This mean that it is time to integrate the health dimension into all policies, from education and environment to food and transportation. And we also need to recognise that the role of health systems extends beyond securing the physical and mental health of the population. We know that a healthy population is also smarter, richer and better able to ensure its security. But there is no better place than today’s conference to emphasise that health systems can serve a crucial role in creating and maintaining public trust.
The COVID-19 pandemic tested our health systems and the crisis resilience of the entire planet. In terms of trust, there were encouraging signs. The public opinion surveys showed that people trusted doctors, medical experts and scientists the most. The level of trust towards them was exceptionally high and was often reflected in the wide support for relevant policies.
On the other hand, this trust did not always translate into desired behaviours, particularly vaccination. Despite the trusted experts telling people that the best way to protect themselves is to vaccinate, we observed remarkable differences between countries in vaccination rates.
This illustrates the complexity of trust dynamics. For example, studies have concluded that the level of trust for public institutions was a more important factor that trust towards the medical experts.
We all need to weave the carpet of trust together. Otherwise, our efforts to build trust on one front may falter if trust is eroded elsewhere.
Therefore, we need for transparent and inclusive governance in policy-making; we also need competent and accessible health systems; and, naturally, we also need genuine human interactions. People expect to be listened and empowered, they wish empathy and respect.
If all these aspects come together, we can create an atmosphere of trust in the society. The atmosphere in which not only health system but any societal systems can operate to their full potential and transform in response to the modern challenges.
In Estonia, we have two excellent examples that can demonstrate this. First is our public digital system that includes widely adopted health e-services. The second is the Estonian Biobank which has gathered genetic samples from more than 200 000 Estonians, including my husband. These hugely ambitious projects would not have succeeded without a foundational commitment to gaining the trust on all levels of the society.
The importance of trust is well understood by those who wish to undermine democracy. This is why using disinformation to attack our sense of security and trust is a common tool on their arsenal. We witnessed this frequently during the pandemic but let us be aware that the field of health is just a convenient playground for these people. Their main aim in spreading disinformation is to polarize societies, create trouble and breed distrust in experts.
The result is not just harmful health behaviours but also a threat to national and international cooperation. The wide-reaching effects that such information warfare can lead to, for example, limiting the ability of WHO to respond to global health crises or restricting our support for Ukraine.
We know that higher levels of public trust make people more immune to false information. Given this, we must recognize that health systems cannot combat disinformation alone. It necessitates a collective effort to boost public trust.
Dear guests!
The Tallinn Charter of 2008 emphasized that health is an investment rather than a cost. In a similar manner, let us acknowledge that building trust is an investment. This investment provides us with the capital needed to propel essential transformations in our health systems—making them resilient, sustainable, and fit for the future.
I wish you a successful conference! Thank you!
