Misinformation on Social Media

This month, the American Journal of Public Health published a special issue on health misinformation on social media. Below are just a few highlights from the issue:

• Five evidence-based recommendations for government and public health organizations to cut through COVID-19 misinformation:
  • Dedicate a page to COVID-19, updated regularly, on already-existing, trusted websites
  • Establish a monitoring protocol to track misinformation to determine when it needs addressed
  • Build two-way communication bridges between health communicators and journalists
  • Request free public service advertising from social media platforms
  • Push notifications through text messaging systems to reach people outside of social media
• Best practices for corrections, which are an important solution for health misinformation on social media:
  • Include a credible source
  • Offer an alternative explanation
  • Repeat corrections
  • Correct early
• Health care providers play a critical role in addressing medical misinformation by empowering patients through these communication strategies:
  • Offer patients assistance in decision-making instead of attempting to persuade them directly or discrediting specific information sources
  • Elicit patient concerns and acknowledge, listen, and empathize while directing to appropriate information sources
• Five areas that need to be addressed to improve policy and practice in response to health misinformation:
  • Enhance surveillance
  • Understand psychological drivers
  • Assess real-world consequences
  • Focus on vulnerable populations
  • Develop effective responses

Strategies for Enhancing Favorable Responses to COVID-19 Vaccine

With the rush to develop a vaccine for COVID-19, addressing misinformation about vaccines is vital. In this editorial, public health professionals argue that vaccine literacy and hesitancy must be addressed now to increase uptake once a vaccine becomes available. Specifically focusing proactive and coordinated communication strategies to address misinformation is key. Messages should seek to increase knowledge about vaccines, support critical evaluation of health information, strengthen numeracy skills, and instill appreciation for the complexity of scientific research. Tailoring consistent messages from providers, media sources, schools, and community programs are vital. Combatting online conspiracy theories and reinforcing health-promoting socials via social media are also needed.

As people begin looking for information about vaccines, it is important to be aware of how risk perceptions and uncertainty affect people’s information-seeking behaviors. This article presents results of a two-wave survey assessing how uncertainty affects perceptions of severity, susceptibility, and emotional appraisals. Researchers determined that health risk communication practitioners must consider messages of hope when designing preventive health messages. To increase effectiveness, messages need to reduce uncertainty for those who perceive themselves to have a high level of susceptibility. This prompts people to seek information, which typically leads to better outcomes.

As pro- and anti-vaccine arguments increase during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to understand the context and appeal of the anti-vaccine movement to better communicate confidence and reassurance on both informative and emotional levels for vaccine uptake. Authors of this commentary argue that public health officials must adapt their approaches to raising awareness by using storytelling over data presentation to appeal and debunk logical fallacies and other problems raised by anti-vaxxers.