Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Mar 30, 2022
Date Accepted: May 30, 2022
Date Submitted to PubMed: Jun 1, 2022
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Navigating Credibility of Online Information during COVID-19: Using mnemonics to equip the public to spot red flags in health information online
ABSTRACT
Misinformation creates challenges for the general public to determine truth from fiction in online content. During covid-19 this issue was amplified due to high volumes of news and changing information. Evidence on misinformation largely focuses on understanding the psychology of misinformation and debunking strategies, but neglects to explore critical thinking education for the general public. This viewpoint outlines the science of misinformation and the current resources available to the public. This paper describes the development and theoretical underpinnings of a mnemonic (“CRABS”) for identifying misinformation in online health content. Leveraging evidence-based educational strategies may be a promising tool for empowering the public with confidence to determine truth from fiction in an infodemic.
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.