JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Health misinformation is a serious and growing concern for public health. However, the term lacks conceptual clarity, undermining our ability to develop a reliable, replicable evidence base and develop effective responses. There is a need to examine usages of the term and build a coherent definition that reflects people’s information concerns.

Objective:

To critically examine the conceptual landscape and implicit tensions around the term “misinformation” in health-related discourses.

Methods:

We conducted a three-phase hybrid concept analysis; this paper reports the first phase, a systematic literature analysis of sixty multidisciplinary papers.

Results:

Authors identified rapid technological change, information predators, and cultural issues (e.g. social fragmentation, growing epistemic disagreement, and the loss of information authorities) as antecedents to health misinformation. They characterised health misinformation as a scourge, identifiable by its falseness or deceptiveness, use of persuasive strategies, unscientific subjectivity, and capacity to disrupt community consensus – revealing epistemic and normative assumptions about what information can, or should, be considered “reliable.” Authors highlighted consequences for individuals, communities, and social systems. However, several unresolved conceptual debates and epistemic tensions remained.

Conclusions:

Several key characteristics of health misinformation emerged from this body of work, but the processes by which these should be judged remain unclear. Additionally, a need exists to establish clearer distinctions between health misinformation and other types of information dysfunction. Findings from this literature phase will inform phase two (stakeholder interviews) and phase three (integrative synthesis).