News & Events

Trust in healthcare and research is increasingly polarized among the public. Efforts to rebuild trust between academic researchers, healthcare professionals, and community members raise ethical questions about accountability, community acceptability, and the responsibilities of institutions to engage communities as equitable partners. Inspired by principles of community-based participatory research, this webinar will describe the “Partnerships to Foster Trust” event series hosted by Arizona State University and Mayo Clinic in 2025. Events included: (1) a panel at the Arizona Bioethics Network Annual Meeting, and (2) a community symposium in downtown Phoenix. Academics, healthcare professionals, decision-makers, community members, and trainees participated in facilitated discussions about trust, community engagement, and ethical responsibilities in public health partnerships. Discussions highlighted several ethical concerns underlying mistrust, including structural barriers, historical harms, misinformation, and interpersonal failures. Participants emphasized that strengthening trust in health in their community will require ethical commitments to transparency, acknowledgement of past harms, and sustained collaboration with communities. In an era of polarization and decreased trust in health, rebuilding this trust will depend on both institutional commitments to equitable partnership and individual efforts by healthcare professionals and researchers to engage communities transparently and collaboratively.

Participants will be able to:

1. Distinguish efforts to rebuild trust between academic researchers, healthcare professionals, and community members.
2. Apply concepts of community engagement methods to different health contexts
3. Discuss the state of trust in healthcare and research across different communities in Arizona

Rachel Gur-Arie, PhD, MS is an Assistant Professor in the Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation & School of Technology for Public Health. She is the Principal Investigator of the Public Health Ethics Lab at ASU. A public health ethicist trained in health systems management, Gur-Arie's research broadly focuses on the ethics of implementing technologies in healthcare, with a focus on vaccines and genomics.

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Future Webinars (Check back each month form more information):

11/18/2026 4:00 PM (Arizona)

First Do No Harm

Michelle Cretella, MD