The effects of corrective information about disease epidemics and outbreaks: Evidence from Zika and yellow fever in Brazil

Carey, John; Chi, Victoria; Flynn, D.J.; Nyhan, Brendan; Zeitzoff, Thomas

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aaw7449

Cited by 122 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Similarly, there is a dearth of field experimental evidence in this context, which is likely to be most informative for scaling up related policies [ 25 , 26 ]. Our positive findings from a field experiment in Zimbabwe suggest that there are especially high returns to correcting misinformation, especially surrounding ongoing health crises where people are uncertain and seeking information [ 7 , 27 , 28 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Countering misinformation via WhatsApp: Preliminary evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe

2020

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We examine how information from trusted social media sources can shape knowledge and behavior when misinformation and mistrust are widespread. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe, we partnered with a trusted civil society organization to randomize the timing of the dissemination of messages aimed at targeting misinformation about the virus to 27,000 newsletter WhatsApp subscribers. We examine how exposure to these messages affects individuals' beliefs about how to deal with the virus and preventative behavior. In a survey of 864 survey respondents, we find a 0.26σ increase in knowledge about COVID-19 as measured by responses to factual questions. Through a list experiment embedded in the survey, we further find that potentially harmful behavior-not abiding by lockdown guidelines-decreased by 30 percentage points. The results show that social media messaging from trusted sources may have substantively large effects not only on individuals' knowledge but also ultimately on related behavior.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Countering misinformation via WhatsApp: Preliminary evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe

2020

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“…Research assessing the effects of correcting health misinformation has shown varied results. While some studies have indicated that correction of certain misinformation by trusted sources can help reduce misperceptions, others indicate correction can sometimes have limited impact or even contribute to further misperceptions in certain circumstances due to factors such as the perceived trustworthiness of the source and whether corrective information conflicts with the social or political identity of the individual [44,45]. Furthermore, countering of messages will require clear understanding of the underlying drivers and motivations among stakeholders for promoting false information.…”

Section: Potential Approaches To Misinformation During Health Emergenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Misinformation and the US Ebola communication crisis: analyzing the veracity and content of social media messages related to a fear-inducing infectious disease outbreak

2020

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Background The Ebola communication crisis of 2014 generated widespread fear and attention among Western news media, social media users, and members of the United States (US) public. Health communicators need more information on misinformation and the social media environment during a fear-inducing disease outbreak to improve communication practices. The purpose of this study was to describe the content of Ebola-related tweets with a specific focus on misinformation, political content, health related content, risk framing, and rumors. Methods We examined tweets from a random 1% sample of all tweets published September 30th - October 30th, 2014, filtered for English-language tweets mentioning “Ebola” in the content or hashtag, that had at least 1 retweet (N = 72,775 tweets). A randomly selected subset of 3639 (5%) tweets were evaluated for inclusion. We analyzed the 3113 tweets that meet inclusion criteria using public health trained human coders to assess tweet characteristics (joke, opinion, discord), veracity (true, false, partially false), political context, risk frame, health context, Ebola specific messages, and rumors. We assessed the proportion of tweets with specific content using descriptive statistics and chi-squared tests. Results Of non-joke tweets, 10% of Ebola-related tweets contained false or partially false information. Twenty-five percent were related to politics, 28% contained content that provoked reader response or promoted discord, 42% contained risk elevating messages and 72% were related to health. The most frequent rumor mentioned focused on government conspiracy. When comparing tweets with true information to tweets with misinformation, a greater percentage of tweets with misinformation were political in nature (36% vs 15%) and contained discord-inducing statements (45% vs 10%). Discord-inducing statements and political messages were both significantly more common in tweets containing misinformation compared with those without(p < 0.001). Conclusions Results highlight the importance of anticipating politicization of disease outbreaks, and the need for policy makers and social media companies to build partnerships and develop response frameworks in advance of an event. While each public health event is different, our findings provide insight into the possible social media environment during a future epidemic and could help optimize potential public health communication strategies.

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“…Social media use as a source of information and entertainment has grown exponentially over the last decade. The top five platforms are Facebook with 2.26 billion users, YouTube with 1.9 billion, WeChat with approximately 1 billion, Instagram with 1 billion users (Ortiz-Ospina, 2019), and TikTok with 500 million users (Carey et al, 2020;Statista, 2020). Users are often active on multiple platforms, so it is difficult to provide an estimate on exposure to specific information.…”

Section: Social Media During Covid-19mentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Social Media to Communicate Sustainable Preventive Measures and Curtail Misinformation

Hauer

Sood

2020

Front. Psychol.

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Effective crisis and risk communication strategies are crucial to promote preventive measures, particularly during times of emergency such as the global SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic. With its global reach, social media is a key source of news and information about COVID-19. However, the abundance of misinformation about personal protective measures that people post on social media, makes it imperative to develop a deeper understanding of effective messaging strategies. Improving the quality of information and strategy with which it is disseminated through social media is crucial to minimizing anxiety, panic and improving the adoption of sustainable preventive measures in addition to curtailing misinformation. Understanding the components of effective health communication strategies allows us to glean common methods to address misinformation which in turn lead to people adopting the appropriate preventive measures. The purpose of this article is to understand how effective social media communication strategies can be crafted to promote sustainable preventive measures and curtail widespread misinformation. Health organizations as well as communications organizations have made available information for effective social media messaging and more importantly serve as a gateway to other resources. We review their recommendations to identify common social media communication elements on the adoption of sustainable preventive measures and effective strategies for curtailing misinformation. We further review social media messaging during the Ebola and Zika outbreaks to evaluate the success of social media strategies and draw from lessons learned. We then create a set of best practices for developing and disseminating social media messaging regarding COVID-19.

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The effects of corrective information about disease epidemics and outbreaks: Evidence from Zika and yellow fever in Brazil

Cited by 122 publications

References 31 publications

Countering misinformation via WhatsApp: Preliminary evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe

Countering misinformation via WhatsApp: Preliminary evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe

Misinformation and the US Ebola communication crisis: analyzing the veracity and content of social media messages related to a fear-inducing infectious disease outbreak

Using Social Media to Communicate Sustainable Preventive Measures and Curtail Misinformation

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