Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Apr 13, 2022
Date Accepted: Jul 13, 2022
Date Submitted to PubMed: Jul 15, 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Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Use of Twitter Amplifiers by Medical Professionals To Tackle Misinformation During the COVID-19 Pandemic
ABSTRACT
The prolific rise of medical misinformation is a pressing public health concern. As an organic response to this phenomenon, a new type of professional organization was born: the health professional amplifier. In this piece, we describe the creation of the IMPACT (Illinois Medical Professional Action Collaborative Team) Amplifier. In this piece, we describe the creation of the IMPACT (Illinois Medical Professional Action Collaborative Team) Amplifier, which is a backchannel line of communication for the 501c3 and verified Twitter account @IMPACT4HC focusing on public communication and advocacy around the COVID-19 pandemic. We define an amplifier as a private group of people with a similar mission who use Twitter for private discussion, brainstorming, planning, and the subsequent public communication and promotion of the group’s work and messaging. We discuss the use of amplifiers to achieve the following goals: rapid dissemination and promotion of accurate medical information and public health guidance, combatting disinformation, and countering harassment.
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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.