How to become a smarter consumer of health information

Rebecca: These terms are often used interchangeably, but they aren’t quite the same thing.

Health misinformation could be information that’s false, inaccurate or outdated compared with the best available evidence. This can include information about improving your health, causes of disease or other ailments, and treatments or prevention of disease.

We sometimes call misinformation “pseudoscience.” It’s typically information with no scientific evidence behind it—but not necessarily! It can be more complicated than that. For example, sometimes we see people making claims based on real research, but it was lab research or animal studies.

Lab research and animal studies are an important part of science, but don’t consider effects on humans. It’s inaccurate and misleading if a headline or someone on social media makes broad claims about the health effects in humans when the study didn’t look at humans at all.

Disinformation is simply misinformation that is spread intentionally. But because we don’t always know someone’s intent, it’s usually more useful to talk about misinformation.

Rebecca: The internet and social media especially are often blamed for the spread of misinformation and disinformation. It’s easy to forget that misinformation long predates the internet!

Misinformation can potentially spread in any way people communicate and share information: word of mouth, handwritten notes, printed materials, broadcasting—anything really.

But there are reasons why social media is so often criticized! Psychologists and other social scientists who research misinformation have identified a few reasons for the large role that social media plays in spreading misinformation.

First, on social media, stories from many different sources are shared in one place. This means we aren’t paying as much attention to the original source of the story and whether it is a reputable source.

Second, we spend so much time online where so much information is constantly coming at us. But this is a very recent development in the history of humanity, and our brains haven’t yet developed skills in quickly sorting this kind of information into “likely true” and “possibly not true” categories.

Third, the very architecture of social media—the “likes” and sharing features—all of that is built on emotional responses. The algorithms favour emotionally charged or controversial content, which may contain misinformation. And when we’re acting on emotion, we often aren’t using the logic and critical thinking parts of our brains.

Rebecca: If you have an image in mind of a stereotypical believer of health misinformation, you can throw that picture away. If you think you’re not susceptible, you might want to reconsider that too!

Researchers have found that some of the factors that we might think would make someone more susceptible to misinformation—a lower income or education level, for example—don’t necessarily make people more or less vulnerable.

We all have biases and emotions that make us more susceptible to believing misinformation to varying degrees.

Rebecca: Misinformation is sometimes more complicated than we might think. But there are a few red flags we can look for.

One big flag is someone trying to sell you something. That may sound obvious, but posts advertising a product or service aren’t always labelled as ads. What might seem like an informational website might be selling products on another page. This doesn’t mean it’s definitely misinformation but selling something is a reason to be cautious.

Another red flag is anything that plays on emotion, especially fear or anger, or anything that’s really hyped up, exaggerated, or overly simplified. Words like breakthrough, miracle, secret, always, never, and guaranteed are often clues that you should proceed with a healthy dose of skepticism.  

Rebecca: The first and most important thing you can do is to slow down. Stop and allow yourself time to consider the truth and accuracy of something you’ve seen or heard before committing to believing it or sharing it. It sounds simple, but when you think about all the information coming at us, it is something we must actively remember to do!

Once you have taken that moment to pause, do a little detective work. As a consumer of information, you want to try to find reputable sources of health information based on best available evidence. 

• First, Google the person or organization who is making the claim to find out more about them. Are they trying to sell something or promote an agenda? Do they have a reputation for sharing misinformation or are they often quoted as a credible source? Do they have the education and work experience to be knowledgeable on the topic?
• You can also check their claims against other sources that you already know are credible. For health information, ask your doctor or pharmacist, or check verified health information websites such as healthlinkbc.ca.
• Make sure you’re reading the original source of information in its entirety. This means that if you see something on social media, find and read the entire original article that the post was based on or quoted. It might not even say what the person on social media was claiming that it said!
• Similarly, headlines are often simplified and can be misleading, so it’s important to read the whole post or article. Make sure you check dates too as health information changes with new research.

We all have the potential to shield ourselves from believing misinformation and to help stop its spread!

* We’re often asked if the public can access our libraries. It would be great if they were open to everyone, but Library Services supports internal IH staff and physicians. The team provides high-quality information resources and services that support patient care, research, continuing education, policy development and more.

• Online Health Information Aid (McGill University) – Tutorials and resources developed by students and faculty at McGill University Department of Family Medicine and School of Information Studies.
• Internet/Misinformation Hygiene Resources (Science Up First) – A collection of resources for evaluating information, identifying misinformation tactics and common biases, resources for developing science literacy, and toolkits for difficult conversations surrounding misinformation. Science Up First is a Canadian collective of scientists, researchers, climate and health experts, and science communicators.
• Evaluating Mental Health and Substance Use Information (Here to Help) – A BC Partners for Mental Health and Substance Use Information project.
• Know the Science (U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health) – Interactive modules, quizzes and videos to help people better understand complex scientific topics and make well-informed health decisions.
• iHealth Facts (Health Research Board-Trials Methodology Research Network HRB-TMNR) – Submit a question about a health claim you suspect might be misinformation to researchers based in the University of Galway, Ireland. Or search previously answered questions.

Rebecca Johns is a librarian with Interior Health Library Services and works at the Melville Library at Penticton Regional Hospital. As a librarian, she’s skilled in teaching information literacy to IH’s health-care staff. She’s been teaching about health misinformation in different contexts for several years, and is passionate about sharing practical advice to navigate the trustworthiness and accuracy of online information resources.

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