JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines an infodemic as the proliferation of false and/or misleading information that leads to confusion, mistrust in health authorities, and rejection of public health recommendations. The devastating impacts of an infodemic on public health were felt during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are now on the precipice of another infodemic, this one regarding abortion. On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization resulted in the reversal of Roe v Wade which had protected women’s right to have an abortion for nearly 50 years. The reversal of Roe v Wade has given way to an abortion infodemic that is being exacerbated by a confusing and rapidly changing legislative landscape, the proliferation of anti-abortion disinformants online, lax efforts by social media companies to abate abortion misinformation, and proposed legislation that threatens to make the distribution of evidence-based abortion information illegal. The abortion infodemic threatens to worsen the detrimental effects of the Roe v Wade reversal on maternal morbidity and mortality. It also comes with unique barriers to traditional abatement efforts. In this piece, we lay out these challenges and urgently call for a public health research agenda on the abortion infodemic with the goal of stimulating the development of evidence-based public health efforts to mitigate the impact of misinformation on increased maternal morbidity and mortality that is expected to result from abortion bans, particularly among marginalized populations.