“(a) examine how factors such as anxiety about health-related issues, preexisting beliefs, and repeated exposure to health misinformation may contribute to the acceptance of the unverified information on social media, and (b), to explore
demographic differences (e.g., sex, age, education level, and social-economic status) in health misinformation acceptance”


Goals of a study by Pan, Liu & Fang (2021) about health misinformation acceptance

- Don’t repeat wrong information because of the repition-based truth-effect.
- Institutions should work to increase people’s trust in them to reduce health-related anxiety.
- Active inoculating and prebunking.
- Repeated warnings.
- Improve people’s health literacy.


Pan, Liu and Fang's (2021) recommendations on how to fight the spread of health misinformation

One recent event that led to a surge of health misinformation was the COVID-19 Pandemic. Misinformation spreading had dangerous consequences, such as causing people to overreact (trying ineffective treatments, hoarding goods) or underreact (neglect public-safety measures, unintentionally spread the virus). 

Misinformation and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Misinformation/disinformation about vaccines that can affect vaccine confidence and vaccination rates.

Vaccine Misinformation

• Previous studies show group relations and shared belief systems often correlate with vulnerability to misinformation.

• Study looks at the correlation between misperception and group affiliations, media exposure, and lived experiences.

•Focuses on the role of racial/ethnic,  religious, and partisan group affiliations relate to misperceptions people held about COVID-19



Group level misperceptions about COVID-19


 • The article addresses how the social, economic, and political contexts people live in affect how they receive information from officials and interpret and act on that information


COVID-19 health information and misinformation in the context of growing inequalities in Lebanon 


Correcting health misinformation has been found to be more effective than corrections related to political information. Ingroup protective behavior, confirmation bias, and motivated reasoning could contribute to the greater difficulty in correcting political misinformation. 

Health Misinformation Corrections

* Definition
* Terms
* Emergence
* Risks
* Similarities with and differences from diet culture

Pro-Eating Disorder Content

As the term indicates, health misinformation is misinformation related to health. Themes might be viruses, food safety, nutrition and vaccinations (Bode & Vraga, 2018; Chen et al., 2018; Lazer et al., 2018; Lewandowsky et al., 2012; Oh & Lee, 2019). These  misinformation can negatively affect people’s health behaviors (Chou et al., 2018; Oh & Lee, 2019). 

Kalamazoo College

Arizona State University

- Health Misinformation
- Political Misinformation
- Fake News
- Disinformation
- Misinformation in Online Communities

Types of Misinformation

An individual or group's capacity to search for, understand, and incorporate health behaviors and resources into their lives. High literacy increases self-efficacy and adherence to healthy lifestyle changes, whereas low literacy can impede access to medical care and accurate information. 
The 3 main categories of health literacy are: functional, interactive and critical health literacy.

Health Literacy 

Not all populations have equal access to health resources. Topics in access to health information include:

•Smartphone dependency and mobile-only households

•Language Barriers

•Health Misinformation

•Information Communication Technologies (ICT)

•Online Searching and Brokering Health Information

•Transportation and Geographic Limitations

Accessibility of Health Resources

Pan, W., Liu, D., & Fang, J. (2021). An Examination of Factors Contributing to the Acceptance of Online Health Misinformation. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 524.

Acceptance of Online Health Misinformation (Pan, Liu & Fang, 2021)

False information spread through news reporting to intentionally mislead and deceive the public. Malintent is present on behalf of the person(s) creating the news, but not necessarily on behalf of the person(s) spreading the news.

Fake News

Health misinformation

Misleading, false, or incomplete information concerning or perpetuated by political entities.

Political Misinformation

Disinformation is information that is (verifiably) false or misleading that is purposefully spread to misinform the public. 

Disinformation 

Synthetic media is media generated by technology such as AI algorithms. There are fears that it could be used to supercharge fake news, spread misinformation and automate creative jobs

Synthetic Media

Duplicate entries in online communities can amplify misinformation by creating the impression that inaccurate information is more widely accepted or verified than it actually is. When multiple copies of inaccurate information are posted, it can give the false impression that the information is reliable or trustworthy, potentially leading to its rapid spread throughout the community.

Amplification of Misinformation in Online Communities

Coined by Gonzalez et al. (2020), health information brokering and searching is the process of bilingual family members (usually children) finding, comprehending, and translating information from online sources to help English Language Learning (ELL) relatives reach health care services, learn about health behaviors, and navigate online health content, also known as eHealth sources. 
Searching for this information requires a degree of English proficiency and education, so children use this inter-generational communication process to bridge gaps in understanding for family members.

Information Brokering and Searching

Some strategies used by health psychologists and other professionals for increasing literacy rates among patients and populations include:
- Education
- Outreach
- Public health campaigns 

Promoting Health Literacy

Functional health literacy describes the basic knowledge and skills in health including literacy and numeracy skills to process health information such as reading food labels. Regarding weight loss, high functional health literacy has been linked to lower BMIs.

Functional Health Literacy

Interactive health literacy describes the ability to apply the knowledge through supportive relationships, which could include accessing health services and support, the ability to engage healthcare professionals to manage health and having social support for health. 

Inadequate, inconsistent, and dismissive care can lead to isolation and attrition.

Interactive Health Literacy

Critical health literacy builds on functional and interactive health literacies to advocate for individual and social health, such as making shared decisions on one’s health with health professionals. Partnership and personalization of health plans are critical to adherence. 

Critical Health Literacy

35% of Latino families rely on their mobile devices as the primary method of connecting to the internet (Gonzalez et al., 2020). This limitation further necessitates the need for strong health and digital literacy skills.

Smartphone Dependency

Inter-generational co-searching, discussion, and group decision making about health behaviors and information may strengthen family bonds, encourage co-learning between parents and children, improve problem solving skills, and increase academic attainment. 

By working together to translate important health information, the entire family is empowered to participate regardless of varying language and technical skills. Emphasizing familial involvement is especially culturally significant to Latino populations.

Pros to Framing Health Information as a Family Asset

Involving developing children in the discussion of sensitive health information, the stress of translating between languages in medical settings, understanding and explaining advanced medical jargon, and crossing child-parent boundaries into co-dependency and over-reliance can put strain on family relationships. There is potential for co-searching and inter-generational decision-making strategies to inadvertently undermine parental self-efficacy and elicit mutual frustration.


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