I generally agree with Aureate, but here are some counterpoints.

In some circumstances, shock protection is more important than health. In some extreme circumstances, the same could be said of freeze protection.

As you go deeper into the Clockworks, you get larger vitapods, so that the relative effect of a 5-star health trinket goes down. For example, if you're in the Shadow Lairs, then your +6 trinket is not very big compared to your +25 vitapod.

My answer for any situation is based on the following question:

"Am I more worried about getting inflicted with a status, or getting hit?"

Generally, this means that health trinkets are better except for areas with lots of shock or fire, some areas with freeze, or an area like Compound 42 where most of the difficulty comes from the statuses being inflicted. Shock resist always always always trumps health especially, since an awkward shock is likely going to make you get hit again.

Damage resist trinkets never cross my mind because even the best kind won't make me die in fewer hits than a heart pendant would, and since they only protect against one kind of damage instead of effectively all four, they're pretty much strictly worse.