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Evaluation of a template for countering misinformation-Real-world Autism treatment myth debunking.

ABSTRACT: Misinformation poses significant challenges to evidence-based practice. In the public health domain specifically, treatment misinformation can lead to opportunity costs or direct harm. Alas, attempts to debunk misinformation have proven sub-optimal, and have even been shown to "backfire", including increasing misperceptions. Thus, optimized debunking strategies have been developed to more effectively combat misinformation. The aim of this study was to test these strategies in a real-world setting, targeting misinformation about autism interventions. In the context of professional development training, we randomly assigned participants to an "optimized-debunking" or a "treatment-as-usual" training condition and compared support for non-empirically-supported treatments before, after, and six weeks following completion of online training. Results demonstrated greater benefits of optimized debunking immediately after training; thus, the implemented strategies can serve as a general and flexible debunking template. However, the effect was not sustained at follow-up, highlighting the need for further research into strategies for sustained change.

SUBMITTER: Paynter J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6353548 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Evaluation of a template for countering misinformation-Real-world Autism treatment myth debunking.

Paynter Jessica J Luskin-Saxby Sarah S Keen Deb D Fordyce Kathryn K Frost Grace G Imms Christine C Miller Scott S Trembath David D Tucker Madonna M Ecker Ullrich U

PloS one 20190130 1

Misinformation poses significant challenges to evidence-based practice. In the public health domain specifically, treatment misinformation can lead to opportunity costs or direct harm. Alas, attempts to debunk misinformation have proven sub-optimal, and have even been shown to "backfire", including increasing misperceptions. Thus, optimized debunking strategies have been developed to more effectively combat misinformation. The aim of this study was to test these strategies in a real-world settin ...[more]

PMID: 30699155

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Project description:BackgroundAs several COVID-19 vaccines are rolled-out globally, it has become important to develop an effective strategy for vaccine acceptance, especially in high-risk groups, such as elderly. Vaccine misconception was declared by WHO as one of the top 10 health issues in 2019. Here we test the effectiveness of applying debunking to combat vaccine misinformation, and reduce vaccine hesitancy.MethodsParticipants were recruited via a daily news show on Dutch Television, targeted to elderly viewers. The study was conducted in 980 elderly citizens during the October 2020 National Influenza Vaccination Campaign. Borrowing from the recent literature in behavioural science and psychology we conducted a two-arm randomized blinded parallel study, in which participants were allocated to exposure to a video containing social norms, vaccine information plus debunking of vaccination myths (intervention group, n = 505) or a video only containing vaccine information plus social norm (control group, n = 475). Participants who viewed either of the video's and completed both a pre- and post-intervention survey on vaccination trust and knowledge, were included in the analysis. The main outcomes of this study were improvement on vaccine knowledge and awareness.FindingsParticipants were recruited from the 13th of October 2020 till the 16th of October 2020 and could immediately participate in the pre-intervention survey. Subsequently, eligible participants were randomly assigned to an interventional video and the follow-up survey, distributed through email on the 18th of October 2020, and available for participation till the 24th of October 2020. We found that exposure to the video with addition of debunking strategies on top of social norm modelling and information resulted in substantially stronger rejection of vaccination misconceptions, including the belief that: (1) vaccinations can cause Autism Spectrum Disorders; (2) vaccinations weaken the immune system; (3) influenza vaccination would hamper the COVID-19 vaccine efficacy. Additionally, we observed that exposure to debunking in the intervention resulted in enhanced trust in government.InterpretationUtilizing debunking in media campaigns on top of vaccine information and social norm modeling is an effective means to combat misinformation and distrust associated with vaccination in elderly, and could help maximize grounds for the acceptance of vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccines.FundingDutch Influenza Foundation.

Project description:During Australia's unprecedented bushfires in 2019-2020, misinformation blaming arson surfaced on Twitter using #ArsonEmergency. The extent to which bots and trolls were responsible for disseminating and amplifying this misinformation has received media scrutiny and academic research. Here, we study Twitter communities spreading this misinformation during the newsworthy event, and investigate the role of online communities using a natural experiment approach-before and after reporting of bots promoting the hashtag was broadcast by the mainstream media. Few bots were found, but the most bot-like accounts were social bots, which present as genuine humans, and trolling behaviour was evident. Further, we distilled meaningful quantitative differences between two polarised communities in the Twitter discussion, resulting in the following insights. First, Supporters of the arson narrative promoted misinformation by engaging others directly with replies and mentions using hashtags and links to external sources. In response, Opposers retweeted fact-based articles and official information. Second, Supporters were embedded throughout their interaction networks, but Opposers obtained high centrality more efficiently despite their peripheral positions. By the last phase, Opposers and unaffiliated accounts appeared to coordinate, potentially reaching a broader audience. Finally, the introduction of the bot report changed the discussion dynamic: Opposers only responded immediately, while Supporters countered strongly for days, but new unaffiliated accounts drawn into the discussion shifted the dominant narrative from arson misinformation to factual and official information. This foiled Supporters' efforts, highlighting the value of exposing misinformation. We speculate that the communication strategies observed here could inform counter-strategies in other misinformation-related discussions.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13278-022-00892-x.

Dataset Information

Evaluation of a template for countering misinformation-Real-world Autism treatment myth debunking.

Publications

Evaluation of a template for countering misinformation-Real-world Autism treatment myth debunking.

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