2020/08/21 by Nour Mheidly, Jawad Fares
Computer Science · Medicine · Nursing · Social Sciences · #Computer science #Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) #Data science #Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection #Health communication #Health policy #Information Dissemination #Internet privacy #Leverage (statistics) #Medicine #Misinformation and Its Impacts #Nursing #Pandemic #Political science #Public health #Public relations #Social media #Vaccine Coverage and Hesitancy #World Wide Web
paper · pdf · doi:10.1057/s41271-020-00247-w
crossref issued 2020/08/21 · crossref published 2020/08/21 · crossref published-online 2020/08/21 · openalex publication_date 2020/08/21 · crossref created 2020/08/21 · crossref published-print 2020/12/01 · crossref deposited 2021/08/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/07/31 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a complementary infodemic, whereby various outlets and digital media portals shared false information and unsourced recommendations on health. In addition, journals and authors published a mass of academic articles at a speed that suggests a non-existent or a non-rigorous peer review process. Such lapses can promote false information and adoption of health policies based on misleading data. Reliable information is vital for designing and implementing preventive measures and promoting health awareness in the fight against COVID-19. In the age of social media, information travels wide and fast, emphasizing a need for accurate data to be corroborated swiftly and for preventing misleading information from wide dissemination. Here, we discuss the implications of the COVID-19 infodemic and explore practical ways to leverage health communication strategies to overcome it. We propose the "Infodemic Response Checklist" as a comprehensive tool to overcome the challenges posed by the current and any future infodemics.