Systematic Literature Review on the Spread of Health-related Misinformation on Social Media

Abstract

A B S T R A C TContemporary commentators describe the current period as "an era of fake news" in which misinformation, generated intentionally or unintentionally, spreads rapidly. Although affecting all areas of life, it poses particular problems in the health arena, where it can delay or prevent effective care, in some cases threatening the lives of individuals. While examples of the rapid spread of misinformation date back to the earliest days of scientific medicine, the internet, by allowing instantaneous communication and powerful amplification has brought about a quantum change. In democracies where ideas compete in the marketplace for attention, accurate scientific information, which may be difficult to comprehend and even dull, is easily crowded out by sensationalized news. In order to uncover the current evidence and better understand the mechanism of misinformation spread, we report a systematic review of the nature and potential drivers of health-related misinformation. We searched PubMed, Cochrane, Web of Science, Scopus and Google databases to identify relevant methodological and empirical articles published between 2012 and 2018. A total of 57 articles were included for full-text analysis. Overall, we observe an increasing trend in published articles on health-related misinformation and the role of social media in its propagation. The most extensively studied topics involving misinformation relate to vaccination, Ebola and Zika Virus, although others, such as nutrition, cancer, fluoridation of water and smoking also featured. Studies adopted theoretical frameworks from psychology and network science, while co-citation analysis revealed potential for greater collaboration across fields. Most studies employed content analysis, social network analysis or experiments, drawing on disparate disciplinary paradigms. Future research should examine susceptibility of different sociodemographic groups to misinformation and understand the role of belief systems on the intention to spread misinformation. Further interdisciplinary research is also warranted to identify effective and tailored interventions to counter the spread of health-related misinformation online.

“Pandemic fear” and COVID-19: mental health burden and strategies

“…13 Currently, ease of access to communication technologies and the transmission of sensational, inaccurate or false information can increase harmful social reactions, such as anger and aggressive behavior. 14 Diagnostic, tracking, monitoring and containment measures for COVID-19 have been established in several countries. 6 However, there are still no accurate epidemiological data on disease-related psychiatric implications or their impact on public health.…”

A New Application of Social Impact in Social Media for Overcoming Fake News in Health

“…There is evidence of the negative effects of using social media to spread misinformation, which produces harmful consequences to global health and well-being, becoming one of the greatest challenges for public health systems today [5,9]. The most extensively studied topics involving misinformation in health are vaccination, Ebola and the Zika virus, as well as nutrition, cancer, the fluoridation of water and smoking [5,[10][11][12]. Disinformation spread by the anti-vaccine movement has led to episodes regarding vaccination provoking easily preventable disasters, such as the measles epidemic in Washington state (January 2019).…”

“…In a globalized world, the spread of fake news content on health-related topics in social media and the ways in which it spreads have recently been discussed in depth [10,30]. Misinformation and disinformation-misinformation as inaccuracy and errors and disinformation as a falsehood created on purpose and the spread of it by malicious individuals (human or bots)-gain momentum from the desire to find a solution to a particular disease or illness by patients or their relatives, who inadvertently contribute to spreading misleading information.…”

“…Globally, the narratives of misinformation are dominated by personal, negative, and opinionated tones, which often induce fear, anxiety, and distrust of institutions. Once misinformation gains acceptance in such circumstances, it is difficult to correct, and the effectiveness of interventions varies according to the personal involvement of each individual and his or her literacy and sociodemographic characteristics [10]. However, other studies have shown that ignorance rarely leads to strong support for a cause.…”

“…We selected the word "health" as a general topic and the specific keywords "vaccines", "nutrition" and "Ebola". The use of these specific keywords is based on the findings by Wang et al [10], in which the authors identify vaccines, nutrition, and Ebola as topics with more misinformation in social media. Specifically, we used the hashtags #vaccines, #nutrition and #Ebola to extract Twitter information.…”