Twitter health amplifiers combat COVID-19 mis

• Doctors, scientists come together to tweet and amplify accurate health information
• The aim is to promote public health guidelines, combat misinformation and anti-bullying
• Simple infographics created in English and Spanish try to spread accurate information to groups that weren’t already seeing it
• The Illinois group is now fighting misinformation on reproductive health, gun violence

CHICAGO — At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when misinformation about the virus began to spread on Twitter, doctors and scientists from Northwestern Medicine and other institutions came together to fight deadly misinformation and misinformation and support each other. when they were eventually attacked online for doing so.

They formed a new type of professional organization — the professional health booster — to tweet accurate health and safety information about COVID-19 and to reinforce each other “to fight misinformation and drown out some of the noise.” , said Dr. Regina Royan, first author. of a new Northwestern Medicine paper explaining the genesis of these groups and a member of the Illinois-based health professional amplifier IMPACT (Illinois Medical Professional Action Collaborative Team), who uses the verified Twitter handle @IMPACT4HC.

In the newspaper, published on July 22 in Journal of Medical Internet ResearchRoyan and his fellow medical professionals explain how successful this group has been and why it is an effective tool for disseminating accurate medical information and combating misinformation while minimizing the harm associated with personal and professional harassment that can come from social media protection.

“The pandemic has been really taxing on health professionals,” said Royan (@ReginaRoyan), emergency medicine researcher and clinical instructor of emergency medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “In addition to the emotional toll of caring for these very sick patients, especially in the early waves of the pandemic, the politicization surrounding COVID-19 added another layer of stress for many of us. One thing we emphasize in this paper is that these types of groups can be a safe space for health professionals to talk about issues like bullying on social media to continue fighting misinformation.”

IMPACT and other health professional boosters are made up of nurses, health economists, scientists, public health professionals and physicians, Royan said. They have endured public harassment and attacks after posting scientifically proven medical information about the COVID-19 virus and vaccines.

IMPACT has also created numerous easy-to-digest infographics in English and Spanish about specific issues, such as mask effectiveness and social distancing, and how mRNA was used to create the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. It’s a creative way the group is trying to reach people who might not have read accurate health information, Royan said.

“We know that COVID-19 has disproportionately affected the Latino population, and it has been important for us to partner with community organizations like Illinois Unidos to ensure that we are also addressing misinformation with Spanish-language resources,” Royan said. .

The group recently began fighting misinformation about reproductive health issues after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. They have also started sharing information about gunshot injuries, such as one last tweet which said, “Fact: Mental illness is not an effective predictor of gun violence against others.”

The study is titled, “Use of Twitter boosters by medical professionals to address misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Other Northwestern authors include Dr. Seth Trueger and Tricia Pendergrast.

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