What is health misinformation?
Health Misinformation can be explained as a health-related claim or fact that is false due to a lack of scientific evidence. The field of medicine has been confronted with the spread of false, inaccurate, or incomplete health information (JAMA, 2018). There has been frequent and increasing spread of misinformation on the net and social media networks and the fact that almost everyone is exposed to the internet makes health misinformation easily available to all even without asking.
Health misinformation is neither new nor unique to COVID-19, however, Cristina Tardaguila, the associate director of the international fact-checking network (IFCN) called COVID-19 ‘the biggest challenge fact-checkers have ever faced’ (J. Scott et al 2020). No wonder, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization mentioned at an international security conference in mid-February that ‘we are not just fighting an epidemic, we are fighting an infodemic’ (WHO, 2020)
Misinformation about COVID-19 has birth severe consequences especially with regards to people’s quality of life and risk of increased mortality. Therefore, understanding the importance of health misinformation within today’s modern context is extremely important.
In an analysis of 225 pieces of misinformation rated false or misleading by fact-checkers published in English between January and the end of March 2020, it was discovered that the number of fact-checks on COVID-19 increased dramatically over the last three months (J. Scott et al 2020).
Factors that predispose to the generation and spread of health misinformation during a pandemic
Research on political misinformation suggests that emotions like anxiety and anger impact how people process fake news which often goes viral due to its ability to provoke emotions. Uncertainty and anxiety about the pandemic combined with political undertone influences how people respond to new information and further create an environment for misinformation.
Also, the presence of political undertone and influence contributes to the spread of COVID-19. A content analysis carried out by the Reuters Institute, revealed that high-level politicians, celebrities or other prominent public figures produced or spread only 20% of the misinformation in their 225 samples, but that misinformation attracted a large majority of all social media engagements in the sample (J. Scott et al 2020). For example, the New York Times and others have documented that President Donald Trump has made a number of false statements on the issue of COVID-19 at events, on Fox News and on Twitter.
Similarly, the decision made by Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in late March to remove posts shared by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro because they included coronavirus misinformation was an important moment and is also an example of political influence on the spread of misinformation (Kurt 2020).
Furthermore, a lack of proper understanding of science and scientific facts by the public predisposes them to believe and spread fake news when it comes in a more relatable and meaningful form to them. In a poll carried out by the Pew Research Center in 2017, nearly half of Americans agreed that the public doesn’t really know enough about science to understand findings in the news. In fact, according to a research published in the Washington Post by New York University and Stanford researchers, only 30 percent of people were able to recognize an untrue or misleading article about COVID-19 as fake when shown.
The public health impact of health misinformation
The spread of health misinformation on social media has a negative impact and adverse effects on public health. For example, social media rumors that circulated during the Ebola outbreak in 2014 aroused challenges towards efforts to control it as hostility was created towards health workers. During the Ebola crisis, there was a circulation of wrong information ranging from bathing in saltwater to eating of kola nuts as a treatment for Ebola (CDD, 2020) by invalidated sources led to increased mortality especially for those who had underlying health conditions worsened by exposure to salt bathing.
Another example is increasingly social media post on antivaccine which has been raising questions on the safety of vaccines and could be contributing to a reduction in vaccination rates and an increase in vaccine-preventable diseases.
In this case of the novel coronavirus, different misinformation narratives have been created. In early February, when Nigeria had not recorded any confirmed cases, different stories were flying around such as: ‘African blood is immune to coronavirus’, a former Nigerian president allegedly calling coronavirus a hoax and certain food items being labeled treatments for coronavirus.
The statement by United sates President Donald Trump on March 20 that chloroquine has shown very encouraging results regarding treating coronavirus led to the increased demand of chloroquine in Nigeria even though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration quickly clarified Trump’s statement that the drug’s effects were still being tested (CDD 2020).
Proven ways of tackling health misinformation during a pandemic
The source of information is really important and curbing misinformation during a pandemic can mark a difference in the rate of morbidity and mortality caused by such pandemic, in this case, COVID-19. In a situation where certain people do not believe that COVID-19 is real and that it is merely an illusion created by the government or certain scientists, they pass this belief to others around them, fail to take cautionary measures and put themselves as well as their close contacts at risk. The eventual result may be the death of these people if they get infected and spread of the virus.
With the current inflow of information across all social media and networks, it is important that the public is enlightened about validating sources of the information they come across in order to discern facts from opinions and falsehoods.
Public health communicators and leaders who are in charge of passing health information to the public should have an excellent understanding of the pandemic and come down to the level of the public when passing across vital information.
`Avoiding the use of ambiguous scientific terms will help the public understand better as well as possible use of a narrative communication style through social media platform and traditional avenue will help to improve public understanding of evidence-based medicine. Narrative is a powerful tool that can enhance engagement and understanding of both truths and falsehoods (Glaser, Gaarsoffky, and Schwan, 2009).
The power of social media and the impact of narratives are so strong and cannot be underestimated hence, it is important to draw more attention to their advantages in order to counter their problematic applications. For example, research has shown that narratives presenting the confusion on vaccination specifically for children suffering from preventable illness can have a real impact on intention to vaccinate (Shelby and Ernst, 2013; Capurro, Dube and Driedger, 2018).
A research carried out by the American Medical Association states that focus on the cultivation of trust in the medical community may create more systemic improvements than attempts to debunk individual pieces of misinformation on social platforms. For example, David Stephan whose son died of meningitis in 2016 after his parents treated him solely with ‘natural remedies’ was removed as keynote speaker form a wellness exposition in Western Canada after backlash on Twitter caused many corporate event sponsors to threaten to pull out if he was left on the program (Mattern,2018). One important aspect of this success story was the timeliness of the critical response online. Real-time social media interventions that rapidly counter misinformation are needed to ensure that belief systems founded on misinformation do not take hold (Tomeny et al., 2017).
Also, deployment of innovative methods such as interpretation of health information accurately into local languages or mother tongues with possible Illustrations and engaging people who speak such languages through chosen spokesmen who understand both the local language and the universal language.
Softwares for Social network analysis can be developed to track the spread of misinformation. Social media platforms need to develop and implement mechanisms for validating the credibility of information on their platforms.
The spread of misinformation causes real harm and unfortunately, countering it keeps getting complex and challenging thus, it will require combined effort and cooperation of all as well as utilization of a host of science communication tools and strategies.
REFERENCES
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Kurt, W. (2020, March 31). ‘Facebook, Twitter, YouTube remove posts from Bolsonaro’. Bloomberg. Accessible on www.bloomberg.com/technology?utm_source=url_link
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