Abstract
The internet has become a popular resource to learn about health and to investigate one's own health condition. However, given the large amount of inaccurate information online, people can easily become misinformed. Individuals have always obtained information from outside the formal health care system, so how has the internet changed people's engagement with health information? This review explores how individuals interact with health misinformation online, whether it be through search, user-generated content, or mobile apps. We discuss whether personal access to information is helping or hindering health outcomes and how the perceived trustworthiness of the institutions communicating health has changed over time. To conclude, we propose several constructive strategies for improving the online information ecosystem. Misinformation concerning health has particularly severe consequences with regard to people's quality of life and even their risk of mortality; therefore, understanding it within today's modern context is an extremely important task.
Keywords
MisinformationInternet privacyThe InternetContext (archaeology)Public healthCredibilityHealth informationHealth carePublic relationsPsychologyComputer scienceMedicineWorld Wide WebPolitical scienceComputer securityNursing
Affiliated Institutions
Related Publications
Scientific Uncertainty in News Coverage of Cancer Research: Effects of Hedging on Scientists and Journalists Credibility
News reports of scientific research are rarely hedged; in other words, the reports do not contain caveats, limitations, or other indicators of scientific uncertainty. Some have ...
Opinion spam and analysis
Evaluative texts on the Web have become a valuable source of opinions on products, services, events, individuals, etc. Recently, many researchers have studied such opinion sourc...
Science vs Conspiracy: Collective Narratives in the Age of Misinformation
The large availability of user provided contents on online social media facilitates people aggregation around shared beliefs, interests, worldviews and narratives. In spite of t...
Susceptibility to misinformation about COVID-19 around the world
Misinformation about COVID-19 is a major threat to public health. Using five national samples from the UK ( n = 1050 and n = 1150), Ireland ( n = 700), the USA ( n = 700), Spain...
Judgment of covariation by social perceivers.
Knowledge about relationships between events is a critical aspect of human knowledge. Knowing whether events are related, and how strongly they are related, enables individuals ...
Publication Info
- Year
- 2019
- Type
- review
- Volume
- 41
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 433-451
- Citations
- 1040
- Access
- Closed
External Links
Social Impact
Altmetric
PlumX Metrics
Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions
Citation Metrics
1040
OpenAlex
Cite This
Briony Swire‐Thompson,
David Lazer
(2019).
Public Health and Online Misinformation: Challenges and Recommendations.
Annual Review of Public Health
, 41
(1)
, 433-451.
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-040119-094127
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1146/annurev-publhealth-040119-094127