Join the fight against health misinformation

Seven tips to protect yourself and others from misinformation

Jan 25, 2025

Rampant health misinformation is becoming a bigger threat by the day. I’m feeling scared, angry, frustrated, and eager to fight back. Will you join me?

Fighting misinformation is like fighting a virus: the key is to limit the spread. Every time you reject misinformation and avoid sharing it is a win, and every win matters. Today, I’ll share mindset shifts and practical tips to help you stop misinformation in its tracks.

pair of red-and-black Title training gloves on grey wooden plank — Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Mindset shifts

Be skeptical. Before the internet era, health professionals were the primary source of health and medical information, alongside musty textbooks and weighty encyclopedias. Now, it’s the wild west. Self-declared gurus hold as much sway as qualified experts; conspiracy theories abound, and unproven products sell like hotcakes (hello, supplement industry!). A skeptical frame of mind is key in this dodgy information environment.

For parents: Teach your kids to be critical consumers by example. Question the effectiveness of unregulated wellness products or the veracity of news headlines. Opportunities abound!

Embrace the evolving nature of science. Science is not a set of facts. It’s a way of learning about the world; it’s an iterative, ongoing process. We develop theories, test them with carefully designed experiments, and update them based on our learning. When we recognize the imperfect and evolving nature of science, we diffuse one of the underlying causes of misinformation: lack of trust in scientific experts (yes, we are sometimes wrong, we learn as we go!).

For parents: Have fun developing and testing theories with your kids. This can be a thought experiment (if X causes Y, what do you think will happen if we change X) or a hands-on experiment (from cooking to volcanos). Always test one factor at a time, keep others constant, and evaluate reproducibility.

person holding laboratory flasks — Photo by Alex on Unsplash

Practical tips for navigating online health information

Pause before you share. If you’re sharing information that you haven’t vetted because it confirms your beliefs, sparks fear, or sounds impressive, you’re part of the problem! Before you share, follow the steps below.

For parents: Teach your kids the important role they play in spreading information, whether rumours at school or false “facts” they picked up on YouTube.

Check the source. Is the source credible? Is it biased by ideology or profit motives? Does it cite evidence to support its claims? Be skeptical! When doing health and medical research, I turn first to health agencies (e.g. World Health Organization, Health Canada, UK NHS, FDA) and national clinical and research organizations (e.g. National Cancer Institute, Menopause Society, Diabetes UK, Heart&Stroke). As needed, I dig more deeply using PubMed to examine reviews and primary studies. I’m increasingly using AI searches like ChatGPT and Bing, but the quality of the results is variable, so I always check the primary sources.

For parents: Teaching your kids to trust credible authorities will go a long way, since most people won’t be up for a deep scientific dive on every topic. Share the sources you use in your own decisions, including vaccination, medical treatments, and preventative health. When your kids announce a new “fact” they learned online ask follow-up questions like: “What was your source? Where did they get their information?”.

woman in red sweater and blue denim jeans sitting on yellow couch — Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash

Evaluate the evidence. Even when a claim has a study supporting it, the case isn’t closed, because not all scientific studies are equal. To pressure test a study’s conclusions, ask a few choice questions: Does it align with the scientific consensus? Was the study in humans? Was it well-controlled? Was it large? Did it measure the outcome we care about? Was it in a relevant population? Did the study address potential biases? If the answer to any of these questions is “no”, take it with a grain of salt! Another powerful way to pressure-test a claim is by trying to debunk it. For example, if you’re unsure about cell phone radiation and cancer, search for: “debunk the claim that cell phones cause cancer”.

For parents: Don’t underestimate your child’s ability to grasp the nuances of science. I recently taught my son about the importance of understanding enrollment criteria. We both surveyed peers about “average” screen time and got very different results due to different samples: he surveyed his online gaming friends while I surveyed my “nerdy'“ (his words!) friends about their family rules. We both had biased samples!

Look out for red flags. Misinformation is often designed to provoke an emotional response - especially anger, fear, or outrage - as we are more likely to engage with and share this type of content. Other misinformation red flags include magical thinking (miracle cure!), one-sided information, weak or ambiguous sources, and conspiratorial thinking (rejecting the consensus). Look out for these red flags!

For parents: Join your kids in being sleuths. Try to spot misinformation red flags (e.g. stoking fears) and discuss common myths, like the false claim that vaccines cause autism, tackled elegantly by

Elisabeth Marnik

sea waves crashing on shore during daytime — Photo by Karan Singh on Unsplash

Check your cognitive pitfalls. We are wired to follow certain thought patterns that can mislead us and be exploited, including logical fallacies and cognitive biases. For example, we tend to embrace information that confirms our beliefs (“confirmation bias”) and give more weight to the first information we hear on a topic (“anchoring bias”). Likewise, we assume that one person’s experience can be generalized (“anecdotal fallacy”), and that X must have caused Y if X happened before Y (“post hoc fallacy”). Before you accept or reject a claim, check in with yourself to see if one of these pitfalls may be at play. It’s easier said than done!

For parents: Illustrate common logical mistakes with real-life examples: “Remember when you felt sick from that tummy bug at school? We thought at first it was from the food you just ate but then figured out it was from your classmate.” Just because X happened before Y doesn’t mean X caused Y!

The Bottom Line

Your actions matter when it comes to the war on misinformation. Defeating misinformation starts with your mindset: be skeptical and embrace the evolving nature of science. When you encounter new information, pause (don’t press share yet!), check the source, evaluate the evidence, watch for red flags, and check your biases. For parents, start early and seize daily opportunities to build their skills — and yours!

person in red sweater holding babys hand

On a personal note, I want to thank you for being here. My peers and I strive to provide unbiased, nuanced scientific and medical information, but our work is meaningless without your engagement! I also want to be honest that it’s a particularly demoralizing time for many of us in the scientific and medical communities. Your support means a lot.

Yours in science and in heart,

Chana

Chana Davis @FueledbyScience