Addressing Misleading and Purposefully Manipulated Health-Related Information
Health-related rumors and intentionally manipulated information represent significant and growing threats to public health. Information that is false, misleading, or purposefully inaccurate can promote narratives that hinder effective preparedness for and responses to public health-related events and erode public trust in health authorities. This can create a vicious cycle through which low trust generates greater susceptibility to misleading rumors that, in turn, lead to less trust and more inaccurate content.
New research efforts and innovations are needed to anticipate and proactively address rumors and misleading content around health topics, establish practical solutions, build trust, and ultimately advance the science of risk communication and infodemiology.
The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security helps to improve trust and facilitate effective responses to misleading rumors by conducting research, identifying best practices, educating public health practitioners and policymakers, and furthering policy solutions to the problem.
Our work includes:
- The TRUST in Public Health website, which features:
- A practitioner-validated Checklist to Build Trust, Improve Public Health Communication, and Anticipate Rumors During Public Health Emergencies.
- An pilot analysis of health-related rumors that have come up during past public health emergencies.
- A analysis exploring specific interventions to help policymakers and practitioners understand critical components of infodemic approaches.
- An evidence-informed conceptual framework to describe how building trust in emergency preparedness and response can help build resilience against incorrect or deliberately false narratives.
- Recommendations to assist public health professionals in increasing or maintaining public trust during health emergencies when rumors are abundant.
- The Practical Playbook for Addressing Health Rumors, which takes a hands-on approach to help public health practitioners, medical professionals, and health communicators recognize and respond to misleading and potentially harmful health rumors.
- A project to understand information manipulation about weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), the impact of this information on non-proliferation efforts, and potential policy solutions.
- An effort working to understand similarities and differences among different U.S. and Russian news sources, focusing on rumors about Ukrainian bioweapon labs.
- Analysis of tweets about Ebola during the 2014 U.S. outbreak, investigating the accuracy and content of social media messages in the context of public health emergencies
- Analysis of tweets about masks and vaccines in the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- A proposal for developing a national strategy to address misleading, contradictory, and manipulated narratives future health emergencies.
- Economic analysis examining the costs of false or misleading information related to COVID-19 nonvaccination.
Project Team
(sections listed in alphabetical order)
Lead: Tara Kirk Sell, PhD, MA
Center team: Vanessa Grégoire, MSc; Aishwarya Nagar, MPH; Hannah Ottman-Feeney; Christina Potter, MSPH; Alex Zhu, MSPH
Students: Amelia Jamison, MPH, MA; Emily O’Donnell-Pazderka, MA; Jessica Malaty Rivera, MS; Annie Sundelson, MSc
Past contributors: Richard Bruns, PhD; Arielle D’Souza; Courtney De Balmann; Erin Fink, MS; Johnross Ford, MS, MHS; Divya Hosangadi, MSPH; Noelle Huhn, MSPH; Sarah-Louise Pasquino; Maximillian Schwartz; Ellie Smith, MSPH; Marc Trotochaud, MSPH; Ruth Grace Wong
Project supported by:
- US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
- Johns Hopkins University Catalyst Award
- National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM)
- Open Philanthropy (past funding support)
Areas of Focus:
- Medical and Public Health Preparedness and Response
- Emerging Infectious Diseases and Epidemics
- Deliberate Biological Threats
Resources and Publications
Reports
- Potter C, Nagar A, Fink E, et al. Checklist to Build Trust, Improve Public Health Communication, and Anticipate Rumors During Public Health Emergencies. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security; 2024.
- Nagar A, Grégoire V, Sundelson A, O’Donnell-Pazderka E, Jamison AM, Sell TK. Practical Playbook for Addressing Health Rumors. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security; 2024.
- Report for NASEM: Sundelson A, Huhn N, Jamison A, Pasquino SL, Sell TK. Infodemic Management Approaches Leading up to, During, and Following the COVID-19 Pandemic. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security; 2023.
- Sell TK, Hosangadi D, Smith E, et al. National Priorities to Combat Misinformation and Disinformation for COVID-19 and Future Public Health Threats: A Call for a National Strategy. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security; 2021.
- Bruns R, Hosangadi D, Trotochaud M, Sell TK. COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation and Disinformation Costs an Estimated $50 to $300 Million Each Day. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security; 2021.
Peer-reviewed Publication
- Sundelson AE, Jamison AM, Huhn N, et al. Fighting the infodemic: the 4 i Framework for Advancing Communication and Trust. BMC Public Health. August 30, 2023. doi:10.1186/s12889-023-16612-9
- Sundelson AE, Trotochaud M, Huhn N, Sell TK. Russian and U.S. News Media Coverage of Ukrainian Biological Laboratories, February – March 2022. J Strateg Secur. 2023;16(4):57-73. doi:10.5038/1944-0472.16.4.2148
- Trotochaud M, Smith E, Hosangadi D, Sell TK. Analyzing social media messages about masks and vaccines: a case study on misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Disaster Med and Pub Health Prep. January 10, 2023. doi:10.1017/dmp.2023.16
- Sell TK, Hosangadi D, Trotochaud M. Misinformation and the US Ebola communication crisis: analyzing the veracity and content of social media messages related to a fear-inducing infectious disease outbreak. BMC Public Health. May 7, 2020. doi:10.1186/s12889-020-08697-3