Medical and Health Content Editors & Marketing Professionals:  Why should you hire a nurse to write your content?

Health Misinformation is Raging

Health misinformation spreads its tentacles in good times and bad. We have certainly seen the lion’s share of misinformation during the coronavirus pandemic. 

For clarity, let’s define misinformation versus disinformation:

• Misinformation is false or unintentionally inaccurate information.
• Disinformation is deliberately false, misleading information.

Health Misinformation on Social Media and the Internet

While there were no social media during the 1980s, I am old enough to recall the belief that you could contract HIV from casual contact like a hug, kiss, or handshake. Crazy right? Know what else is crazy? Universal precautions were implemented as a response to the HIV epidemic in 1985. Before that, gloves were used rather sparingly.

Today, people STILL have outdated beliefs concerning HIV.

Misinformation is as old as the hills and ages well.

How about contracting coronavirus from your own hair? We believed it.

How about contracting coronavirus from your groceries? Believed that too. Admit it.

You did.

We all know these myths are born out of fear-mongering tactics, while others are meant to persuade you to buy something. Like gimmicky, devious videos hocking diet supplements that promise to help you lose 20 lbs in 20 days! Eyeroll. 

Social media accounts for a vast percentage of false health information dissemination. This fact and the recent pandemic heightened widespread mistrust of public health infrastructure. I want to know who’s writing this stuff?

False health information is a significant public health concern and can be detrimental, especially in low health literacy populations.

Understanding psychological drivers is an essential element in developing successful interventions against misinformation. Psychological drivers include:

• Emotion
• Cognition
• Identity

Health topics are known to generate strong emotions, including fear and anxiety. So who comforts patients during their worst times? Nurses do! Nurses spend the most time with patients, and most are natural nurturers.

Cognition speaks directly to health literacy. If you lack health literacy, it isn’t easy to discern credible information or seek verifiable sources. The inverse is also true; health literacy declines if your cognition is impaired.

For example, suppose someone reads an article on Twitter about how shellfish allergies predispose you to contrast allergies. As a result, one may never seek care for chest pain for fear of the contrast given during cardiac catheterization. This is entirely false, by the way, and could lead to a poor outcome.

Nurses understand health literacy and can translate confusing data into discernible and engaging content.

A human tendency toward confirmation bias exists. Confirmation bias is critical because it leads people to cling to false beliefs or to give credence to information that warrants their worldview despite evidence to the contrary. Interventions based on value affirmation could be more effective in these cases.

Nurses can reach target audiences by injecting affirmation values such as self-assurance and self-worth into their writing to counter the bias. The idea is to reduce psychological threats and empower others by tearing down barriers to credible information.

Health professionals and policymakers agree on the demand to control health misinformation, and recent studies are exploring pioneering ways to effectively combat health misinformation online. However, additional research is needed.

Investment in long-term interventions and policies is already happening.

Lisa Singh, Ph.D., a professor of computer science and research professor at the Massive Data Institute at Georgetown University, and her colleagues are developing computational tools that will allow researchers to monitor health topical conversations on social media.

“Once we can detect those different pieces of misinformation that are surging, we can focus on interventions that [target] those pieces of misinformation,” she said.

Singh believes using publicly available data from social media platforms will provide insights into how people think about public health issues and how to respond to them.

Lawmakers and health advocates have pressured social media platforms to enact broad policy changes to ban or limit the spread of false health information.

Five universities received grants from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and the Centers for Disease Control and Preventive (CDC) to design curricula around dispelling medical misinformation and vaccine hesitancy across the nation:

• Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Buffalo
•  Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell
•  Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine
•  The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine
•  Maine Medical Center/Tufts University School of Medicine — MaineTrack

A 2021 study published by the Journal of Internet Research titled Prevalence of Health Misinformation on Social Media: Systematic Review by Suarez-Lledo and Alvarez-Galvez from the Department of Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Public Health, University of Cadiz, Cadiz, Spain, indicated that health misinformation on social media is generally linked to the following seven topics:

• Vaccines
• Diets and eating disorders
• Drugs
• New tobacco products
• Pandemics and communicable diseases
• Non-communicable diseases
• Medical treatments and health interventions

Those are all extensive topics.

Nurses are adept at finding and using evidence-based data and consistently provide high-quality, factual content, regardless of the topic.

Nurses’ credentials will help your content rise to the top of the page.

Nurses are trusted professionals with leadership characteristics and communication skills.

Nurses are ranked #1 in Gallup’s annual Most Honest and Ethical Professions Poll for 21 consecutive years.

Nurses are skilled, brilliant, and honest, with deep community connections.

Who would want their health content from a non-medical writer? That’s like going to a podiatrist for heart surgery. Or hiring a painter to fix a washing machine. Why would you do that?

Editors and marketing professionals or whatever your role in digital health content, you ARE major stakeholders in healthcare. With the right people writing content, you can infiltrate online misinformation by offering evidence-based, fact-driven, compassionate, thoughtful content to provide the counter-messaging necessary to change lives.

Together we can help rebuild public trust in healthcare.

Why hire a nurse to write your content? You already know.

 References

National Library of Medicine. Prevalence of Health Misinformation on Social Media: Systematic Review. Published, January 20, 2021. Accessed, April 21, 2023.

American Society For Microbiology. How To Spot and Combat Health Misinformation Published, September 9, 2022. Accessed, April 21, 2023.

National Library of Medicine. Where We Go From Here: Health Misinformation on Social Media. Published, October 2020. Accessed, April 21, 2023.

World Health Organization. Infodemics and misinformation negatively affect people’s health behaviors, new WHO review finds. Published, September 1, 2022. Accessed, April 21, 2023.

National Library of Medicine. Health Literacy, Cognitive Ability, and Functional Health Status Among Older Adults. Published, January 30, 2014. Accessed, April 21, 2023.

Association of American Medical Colleges. AAMC Health Professions Education Curricular Innovations Grant Program. Published, July 21, 2022. Accessed, April 21, 2023.

Gallup. Nurses Retain Top Ethics Rating In U.S. Published, January 10, 2023. Accessed, April 21, 2023.