By conducting two waves of large-scale surveys in the United Kingdom and Germany, we investigate the determinants of identity and inequality misperceptions. We first show that people substantially overestimate the share of immigrants, Muslims, people under the poverty line, and the income share of the richest. Moreover, women, lower-income, and low...
Published in BMC public health
The COVID-19 pandemic was characterized by an abundance of information, some of it reliable and some of it misinformation. Evidence-based data on the impact of misinformation on attitudes and behaviours remains limited. Studies indicate that older adults are more likely to embrace and disseminate misinformation than other population groups, making ...
Published in MATEC Web of Conferences
Social media has become a part of our lives with countless individuals actively sharing content and connecting with others. However this open platform also presents a challenge, in dealing with misinfor- mation and the spread of information by individuals. Social media platforms face the task of identifying these users and preventing the disseminat...
Published in Medical Principles and Practice
Highlights of the StudyExamples of misinformation on social media include safety of the COVID-19 vaccine, infertility, and harmful side-effects.Misinformation disseminated rapidly due to lack of social media monitoring, increased anti-vaccination messages, and lack of accurate information.Suggested solutions directed at care providers include integ...
Published in Bundesgesundheitsblatt, Gesundheitsforschung, Gesundheitsschutz
Insbesondere im Kontext der COVID-19-Pandemie sind Falsch- und Desinformationen in sozialen Medien zu einer Herausforderung für effektive Public-health-Maßnahmen geworden. Hier betrachten wir Einflussfaktoren auf das Glauben und Teilen von Falschinformationen auf individueller, sozialer und situativ-kontextueller Ebene und diskutieren Interventions...
Published in Bundesgesundheitsblatt, Gesundheitsforschung, Gesundheitsschutz
Digital Public Health hat in den vergangenen Jahren insbesondere durch die mit der COVID-19-Pandemie verbundenen Anforderungen einen erheblichen Schub erfahren. In diesem Bericht geben wir einen Überblick über die Entwicklungen in der Digitalisierung im Bereich Public Health in Deutschland seit 2020 und illustrieren diese mit Beispielen aus dem Lei...
Published in Vaccine
Misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories about vaccines are key drivers of vaccine hesitancy. A repeated false claim about COVID-19 vaccines is that the vaccines cause female infertility. Dating back decades, various conspiracy theories have linked vaccination programs with infertility and thus harmed vaccination programs in Africa, ...
Published in Current opinion in psychology
Factual corrections that target misinformation improve belief accuracy. They do so across a wide variety of countries, political beliefs and demographic characteristics. Instances of backfire, wherein exposure to corrections reduce accuracy, are exceedingly rare and may be an artifact of research design. The evidence regarding other common concerns...
The use of the Internet to access news has an impact on African citizens' perceptions of democracy. Using repeated cross-sectional data from the Afrobarometer survey across 35 African countries over the period 2011-2018, along with an instrumental variable approach, allows addressing potential endogeneity bias between Internet use and citizens' per...
Published in Vaccine
The aim of this study was to explore the sociodemographic and individual-level factors associated with vaccine hesitancy in general, including political affiliation and beliefs in vaccine conspiracy theories, in a diverse group of Canadian adults within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. 641 responses were included in the analysis, with those se...
