“On the surface, a lot of anti-vaccine misinformation can be very convincing because they [activists] can take a quote or a bit of misinformation and isolate it, focusing on just that bit and removing all the other context,” Kolina Koltai, a postdoctoral fellow and misinformation researcher at the Center for an Informed Public, said in a recent interview with Healthline.
Koltai, who has studied the vaccine-hesitant movement since 2015, explained why people are easily drawn to the vaccine misinformation. “We’re only a year into knowing that COVID-19 exists,” she said. “There’s so much we don’t know, and things are constantly changing and that can make us feel very uncertain. Uncertainty breeds doubt and worry and makes us so much more prone to misinformation.”
Think before sharing
To help people identify whether the information they find about the COVID-19 vaccine is credible, Koltai recommended to always pause first. “Before you click share, stop and think for a few seconds,” she said. “The goal here is to not further spread misinformation. So before sharing, pause and see if you can do some of your own research to find out whether or not it’s true.”
Verify the information
The next important step is to see if the information can be verified. “Search to see if other people are reporting this and saying the same thing,” Koltai said. “Look to see if these sources are reputable or if it’s on a random blog you’ve never heard of before.”
In many instances, Koltai said, “the debunking is already out there.” Moreover, she said, “you can search for something and oftentimes find an explanation for what you’re looking for. Then you can search that explanation and see if other reputable sources have corroborated it.”
Seek out experts
Finally, while having a healthy dose of skepticism is important, Koltai suggested having faith in health professionals and medical experts. “Vaccine misinformation is not going away anytime soon. Expect this to go on for many months going forward. Trusting your healthcare provider and experts in the field is incredibly critical right now, even more so than ever.”
- Read the full article, “How Conspiracy Theories Undermine People’s Trust in COVID-19 Vaccines,” at Healthline.
Photo courtesy the Province of British Columbia / Flickr via CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
