The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the need for delivering accurate and timely health information to the public. However, the public is being increasingly exposed to a barrage of health misinformation amplified by social media. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations coined the term “infodemic” to describe this unprecedented spread of health misinformation. A recent report by the United States Surgeon General's Advisory highlighted how the rapid proliferation and decentralization of health information coupled with insufficient communication from trusted sources has led to the public's increased exposure to health misinformation. Health misinformation easily spreads in the current communications environment that includes social media, independent news outlets, and online forums that feed content into algorithms which often prioritize popularity and controversy over accuracy.
Misinformation is more likely to take hold when people have poor eHealth literacy and thus are unable to appraise health information. While health literacy is broadly defined as the skills needed to make health decisions in the context of everyday life, eHealth literacy is “the ability to seek, find, understand, and appraise health information from electronic sources and apply the knowledge gained to addressing or solving a health problem." Having eHealth literacy is essential for individuals to be able to wade through the myriad of information that is found online, particularly in a highly politicized environment where there is a vacuum of credible and trusted sources of information. It is important to note that eHealth literacy is not equally distributed. Social determinants of health shape the accessibility to and use of information channels and the ability to process health information, the comprehension of health information, and the capacity to act upon that knowledge. Additionally, it is estimated that over 40 million adults in the United States have low literacy skills, resulting in health disparities and limiting equitable access to health resources. The combination of poor health literacy and poor ehealth literacy allows misinformation to take hold.
While the US Surgeon General has called upon health organizations to partner with community members to develop and disseminate health messaging, the potential contribution of community-based organizations (CBOs) as trusted conduits is being missed. CBOs are essential health stakeholders who have established relationships with communities that are often overlooked by the larger healthcare system. We argue that including CBOs early in the health communication pathway is critically needed to combat this infodemic and reorient communities to their already trusted sources of health information. CBOs have tremendous reach within the communities that they serve, providing social networking, encouraging health promoting behaviors, and implementing health interventions through multiple modalities of community engagement. Additionally, because true community engagement and not simply community outreach is needed to gain the trust of marginalized populations, CBOs have a distinct advantage as they are already embedded within the fabric of the community. (author introduction)
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