This article provides best practices for assessing information about COVID-19.
The author provides best practice, common sense, and fact-checking questions to ask when evaluating health information:
- Are multiple outlets reporting the same information?
- What is the most credible source of information?
- Do multiple articles report contradictory information?
- What is the underlying source material?
- Is the source of the original research one of the leading, peer-reviewed journals in the field?
- Are the charts and graphs an accurate representation of the scientific research presented in the article?
- Is the information plausible
- Is the article headline a variation on the theme of “The Secret That Even Doctors Won’t Tell You”?
- If the breakthrough is a drug claim, has it been used in human trials?
- Does the article have a comments section?
- What happens if you do your own research on the topic, along with other keywords such as “myth,” “hoax,” “scam,” “false,” “clickbait,” and “junk science”?
