Communicating health messages in the age of unreason

The movie Don’t Look Up, which was released last year, tells the story of two astronomers trying to warn the world about a comet that will make humanity extinct. People respond with denial, minimization, anger, blame – and ‘alternate’ facts. The film is an allegory of the climate crisis but could just as easily apply to the pandemic. Like the astronomers in the movie, doctors and scientists must sometimes feel they are shouting into the wind.

Unsupported claims spread across social media during the pandemic undermining trust in experts, sowing fear and uncertainty, polarizing communities, and impeding public health efforts. Meanwhile, our individualistic culture struggled to grasp the collectivist concept that we might socially distance, wear masks, and vaccinate to protect not just ourselves but others.

A new study suggests culture has shifted “from the collective to the individual, and from rationality towards emotion”.ᶦ We are living in a post-truth era in which personal beliefs trump verifiable facts, it claims. “Our work suggests that the societal balance between emotion and reason has shifted back to what it used to be around 150 years ago,” said Professor Marten Scheffer, who led the research.”ᶦᶦ

Researchers analyzed language from millions of books, articles, Google searches, social posts, and other sources dated back to 1850. They measured how often the 5,000 most-used words appeared and found the use of words associated with reason – such as ‘determine’ and ‘conclusion’ – has dropped dramatically. Meanwhile, the use of words associated with emotion – such as ‘feel’ and ‘believe’ – has soared in the same period. The study also found a shift from the use of plural pronouns suggesting a collectivist mindset to singular pronouns indicating an individualistic outlook.

Researchers point to the rise of the internet as one cause of this move from rational collectivism to emotional individualism. The study found the use of emotional words accelerated around 2007 when social media platforms started to overtake traditional media.

In the pre-digital era, the flow of information was controlled by newspapers and broadcasters. Laws and self-regulatory systems – from the Defamation Act to the Editors’ Code of Practice – set limits on their behaviour. They were not permitted to defame people, invade their privacy, or publish inaccurate or misleading claims (which is not to say they did not and do not test these limits).

The internet opened the floodgates to an outpouring of unmediated and unregulated content. This intoxicating free-for-all led not just to a glut of narcissistic oversharing and cruel trolling but also a proliferation of belief-based misinformation.

“Covid-related tweets and posts were found to contain misinformation with bleach, cocaine and water[iv] all promoted as Covid cures.”

The pandemic brought this into sharp focus. Confronted with an overwhelming volume of data from case, death and vaccination rates to the ever-changing R number, some sought comfort in conspiracy theories and confected claims. Around 10 per centᶦᶦᶦ of Covid-related tweets and posts were found to contain misinformation with bleach, cocaine and waterᶦᵛ all promoted as Covid cures.

“Health misinformation has cost lives,” said US Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy. “Misinformation takes away our freedom to make informed decisions about our health and the health of our loved ones.”ᵛ

As the world emerges from the pandemic, experts are exploring what more can be done to counter misinformation. Education is, of course, the most powerful antidote as it enables people to vet scientific claims. Other solutions include governments mandating standards for a range of health statements (not just claims by pharmaceutical companies about prescription drugs); social media platforms introducing fact-checking and adjusting algorithms to limit the spread of online quackery; and scientists promoting living evidence syntheses that provide a full and continuously updated picture. Meanwhile, professional healthcare communicators have a crucial role in convening trusted experts and amplifying credible conversations.

ᶦ Scheffer, Marten, van de Leemputm Ingrid, Weinans, Els and Bollen, Johan. 16 Dec 2021. The rise and fall of rationality in language, PNAS. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2107848118 (Last accessed: 16 May 2022).

ᶦᶦ Tate, Nick. 21 Jan 2022. ‘Post-truth era’ hurts Covid-19 response, trust in science, WEBMD. https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20220121/post-truth-era-covid-response (Last accessed: 16 May 2022)

ᶦᶦᶦ Gabarron, Elia, Oyeyemi, Sunday Oluwafemi & Wynn, Rolf. 2021. Covid-19-related misinformation on social media: a systemic review, Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, 99 (6), 455 – 463A. Available at: https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/341745 (Last accessed: 16 May 2022)

ᶦᵛ Covid-19 Misinformation Types Coding Scheme and Dashboard – part of a WHO-funded project that studies the nature and scale of Covid-19 misinformation. 2020. Available at: https://covid19misinfo.org/covid-19-claim-types/  (Last accessed: 16 May 2022)

ᵛ Press briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki and Surgeon General Dr Vivek H. Murthy. 15 July 2021. Available at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/07/15/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-surgeon-general-dr-vivek-h-murthy-july-15-2021/  (Last accessed: 16 May 2022)