Countering Medical Misinformation: A Framework to Support Successful Interventions

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an “infodemic” of both accurate and inaccurate information, highlighting the need to counteract the potentially harmful effects of misinformation on health and well-being. This report prepared by Critica, provides an outline of significant initiatives in this arena over the past several years.

Inside the report:

• Overview of the Problem: The impact of the “infodemic” on health and well-being in the United States and globally, and the need to address medical and health-related misinformation.
• Public Health Frameworks: Three public health frameworks that can guide our overall response to misinformation are outlined. (The epidemiological model, the environmental health framework, and the socio-ecological model).
• Initiatives and Interventions: A detailed overview is provided of ongoing initiatives in the medical misinformation field.
• Key Gaps and Challenges: Gaps in our knowledge of effective misinformation interventions, including the lack of attention to “structural” solutions and the lack of definition of key outcomes that misinformation initiatives should be targeting.
• Coordination and Collaboration: A call for greater coordination and collaboration among actors in the misinformation arena to produce more efficacious and sustainable interventions.