NNLM Virtual Health Misinformation Symposium

Did you know 20-30% of YouTube videos about emerging infectious diseases contain inaccurate or misleading information? Learn how to spot health misinformation & improve media & health literacy! Attend the NNLM Health Misinformation Symposium April 4-6, 2023. #HealthMisinfoNNLM #healthliteracy https://nnlm23.vfairs.com/

Source: Infodemics and misinformation negatively affect people’s health behaviours, new WHO review finds

Join librarians, public health professionals, health professions, and researchers to explore the history, research, and solutions to health misinformation! My presentation “Strategies for dispelling health misinformation: Prebunking and Motivational Interviewing” is Wednesday, April 5th 1:30-2:30 ET.

Here are some other sessions relevant to academic librarians:

Librarians and educators are accustomed to treating information and media literacy as broadly subject agnostic. It is therefore not surprising that we have positioned ourselves on the front lines against the spread of mis/disinformation about COVID-19. As with other kinds of sources, we show students how to identify markers of unreliability and reliability, and how to read laterally in order to fact check. Once students can do this, we hope they will not believe or spread health mis/disinformation about COVID. Research in science and health communication, however, indicates that evaluating health journalism comes with its own particular issues. In this presentation, I will discuss three of these issues: the media framing of how science in general works, how science/health journalists get information about research, and the particular tells of unreliable health journalism. In each case, I will suggest some approaches/tools that will help address these issues in information literacy instruction around COVID.

Building off of a preliminary report presented at the NNLM 2021 Symposium, this presentation will describe the development of a teaching module deployed through the Public Health Science department at a mid-sized midwestern university. Focusing on key considerations in assessing whether information is truthful vs. misleading, this module illustrates such questions as “What is a fact? What is an opinion? What makes them different from each other?” using public health-related examples, ranging from lead in gasoline to COVID-19.

The presenters will discuss the design process that informs each element of the module, the module’s integration into the university’s learning management system to facilitate student access, and what specific learning outcomes each module element is designed to foster. Finally the presenters will discuss how best to assess this module for teaching effectiveness.

Evidence based scrolling: Using experts on the internet to improve scientific literacy skills.

Jocelyn Swick-Jemison

This discussion will explore science and health influencers online and how they can be used in the classroom to improve science literacy skills. Can we apply the principles of evidence based practice to evaluating science in the media? There are media influencers such as John Oliver, Rebecca Watson and Mama Doctor Jones (amongst many others!) using their expertise and platforms to demonstrate science literacy through exploration of reliable (and unreliable) evidence.

Academic Librarians are often tasked with teaching information literacy skills according to the ACRL Framework. While these skills are essential to college level research and writing – they are also required for navigating the every day bombardment of information that we get from the media. How can academic librarians integrate these media influencers into their teaching in order to teach evidence based science literacy skills for use in the “real world”. Science literacy does not require being a science expert – it means being able to rely on those who are experts and discern evidence from reliable sources. Science and health headlines are often over simplified and sensationalized – how can we used evidence-based practice principles to come to our own conclusions?

Among many others! Check out the agenda for the symposium.