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Using Social Media to Communicate Sustainable Preventive Measures and Curtail Misinformation
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Using Social Media to Communicate Sustainable Preventive Measures and Curtail Misinformation

Michael K. Hauer and Suruchi Sood
Frontiers in psychology, v 11, pp 568324-568324
16 Oct 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.568324
PMID: 33178073
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
url
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.568324View
Published, Version of Record (VoR)CC BY V4.0,  Open

Abstract

COVID-19 health communication misinformation preventive measures Psychology social media
Effective crisis and risk communication strategies are crucial to promote preventive measures, particularly during times of emergency such as the global SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic. With its global reach, social media is a key source of news and information about COVID-19. However, the abundance of misinformation about personal protective measures that people post on social media, makes it imperative to develop a deeper understanding of effective messaging strategies. Improving the quality of information and strategy with which it is disseminated through social media is crucial to minimizing anxiety, panic and improving the adoption of sustainable preventive measures in addition to curtailing misinformation. Understanding the components of effective health communication strategies allows us to glean common methods to address misinformation which in turn lead to people adopting the appropriate preventive measures. The purpose of this article is to understand how effective social media communication strategies can be crafted to promote sustainable preventive measures and curtail wide-spread misinformation. Health organizations as well as communications organizations have made available information for effective social media messaging and more importantly serve as a gateway to other resources. We review their recommendations to identify common social media communication elements on the adoption of sustainable preventive measures and effective strategies for curtailing misinformation. We further review social media messaging during the Ebola and Zika outbreaks to evaluate the success of social media strategies and draw from lessons learned. We then create a set of best practices for developing and disseminating social media messaging regarding COVID-19.

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20 Record Views
22 citations in Web of Science
29 citations in Scopus

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#3 Good Health and Well-Being

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Web of Science research areas
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
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