Health disinformation is becoming more and more widespread online, a science communicator has warned.
Patrick Elliott, a PhD researcher in human nutrition at University College Dublin, said with the prevalence of harmful health information on social media, users must be equipped to distinguish fact from fiction.
Elliott is one of a number of early-career researchers and scientists working with the SciComm Collective, an initiative backed by the Department of Health and Healthy Ireland which shares science-backed information on maintaining a healthy weight.
Focusing on four pillars of stress management, nutrition, physical activity, and sleep, the aim of the collective is to provide information that is easy to understand but vitally, has the weight of scientific research to support it – a benchmark health claims on social media often fail to achieve.
With their posts, the collective is attempting to “democratise scientific evidence”, he says, striping back the confusing jargon that often surrounds health information and bringing it to its target audience through social media.
Elliott notes that one of the big issues with disinformation online is that social media algorithms are designed to keep you engaged and on the platform. If the algorithm knows you engage with content touting false or misleading health claims, it will feed you more of that type of content.
“That leads to people being pigeonholed and falling down rabbit holes,” he says.
“[They’re] actually being segmented then in terms of what they’re seeing online, so we’re seeing a distorted perception of what’s going on in reality at times due to social media.”
He warns that social media users should be wary of content creators pushing claims that “fly smack bang in the face of recommendations”.
“Sometimes you have to question the motive,” he says, pointing out that some health and fitness influences make unsubstantiated claims before presenting a ‘solution’, which often just happens to be in the form of a product they can sell you.
“It’s often tied back to a monetary gain,” he adds.
Asked about the most worrying health disinformation he comes across on social media, Elliott says: “There’s so much health disinformation out there, it’s hard to narrow it down.”
However, focusing on the topic of maintaining a healthy weight, he highlights the harmful ‘obesity is a choice’ rhetoric which he says is particularly prevalent in comments he sees online.
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He stresses that scientific research would suggest that claim is far from the full story, explaining it is “mind-blowing how many factors are associated with weight and determining factors towards obesity”.
“A disease is not a choice, it’s much more complex than the responsibility of an individual,” he adds.
So for those of us battling in the trenches of social media, Elliott highlights three ‘red flags’ to watch out for in content which may be pedalling questionable health claims.
The first is if the content creator is making big statements that go against guidelines “intrenched in scientific knowledge”.
Explaining that consensus is very hard to achieve, particularly in the scientific community, Elliott says information that goes against a widely held consensus should be treated with suspicion.
Another red flag are black and white claims, such as when content creators label a food ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
And finally, Elliott reiterates that we should question the motive of those sharing suspect health information online. If posting controversial or unfounded claims is likely to be of benefit to the content creator, whether it’s monetarily, or though likes, engagement or ‘clout’, proceed with caution.
