While nurses continue to rank high for honesty and ethics, Americans’ trust in the nations’ professions is tanking, found in this year’s Gallup Poll update titled, Nurses Continue to Lead in Honesty and Ethics Ratings.

 

 

 

 

 

Nurses perennially top this chart, usually followed by doctors and pharmacists. But this year, it’s military veterans who garner the second spot in the Gallup Poll, with doctors and pharmacists in positions 3 and 4.

Ranking at the bottom as least-respected for honesty and ethics are Members of Congress, again garnering the low-point in this study, with telemarketers trailing the politicians at the margin.

Car salespeople, stockbrokers, advertising workers, and business executives tilt quite negative, as well.

Gallup has conducted the honesty and ethics in professions poll since 1976; nurses were added to the list of occupations in 1999. Except for 2001, when firefighters took top spot in the Poll after the 9/11 attacks, nurses have ranked first place for honesty and ethics in America.

Even as nurses still rate highest, we note that the 75% of Americans rating the profession “high” or “very high” is 14 percentage points below the height of nurses’ top rating in 2020 achieved during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Physicians and pharmacists rankings have also dramatically fallen 20 and 18 points, respectively, since their apex in the pandemic. This latest poll finds doctors’ and pharmacists’ ethics ranking now below the pre-pandemic numbers. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a look at the demise in trust for honesty and ethics for selected professions — those with record-low ethics ratings. There have been big drops in Americans’ views on members of the clergy, stockbrokers, high school teachers, and police officers.

Underneath these statistics, there are important differences to note by Americans’ political party affiliation: there are large Republican-Democrat differences regarding ethics/honesty standards perceptions for,

  • Police officers, Republicans +34
  • Military veterans, Republicans +19
  • Clergy, Republicans +15
  • High school teachers, Democrats +40
  • Journalists, Democrats+33
  • Labor union leaders, Democrats +33
  • Nurses, Democrats +17
  • Doctors, Democrats +16.

Interestingly, the same proportion of Democrats and Republicans rate honesty and ethics of pharmacists in equal numbers at high or very high (at 56%).

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  We are in an era of health care grievance, as observed by the Edelman Trust Barometer in 2026. Medical bills and medical bankruptcy, challenging access to care and friction-ful on-ramps to services, and overall dissatisfaction with the cost-of-living and inflation-ennui all contribute to U.S. health citizens’ views on health care and all professions.

That even the nursing profession, long the top-ranked occupation for honesty and ethics, has eroded in peoples’ views illustrate patients’ and consumers’ frustration with the overall health care experience and line-item in their household budgets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My own forecast on consumers and health care in the U.S. for the coming year continue to be a largely “you’re on your own” life-flow, confronting fragmentation, high costs, and barriers to the on-ramps people need for primary care, early, and prevention and wellness services. Those consumers who can afford to opt-into and buy-up for various health and medical services and products — from GLP-1s to nutritious food, concierge PCPs and lab tests — will continue to cobble together and “curate” their personal health care ecosystems. Those patients who cannot afford to do so or know how to do so will fall through the patchwork quilt that is currently the modus operandi of U.S. health care.