Interview: Want to find better health information? Start with these questions.
Doing Well interviews Kristy Roschke, an expert in media literacy.
We’re constantly bombarded by health information. When that information is false, it can degrade individual and community health outcomes and strain trust between patients and providers. But health is complex, emotional, and evolving, and knowing what to believe isn’t always easy.
For tips to sort through the noise, I spoke to Kristy Roschke, the executive director of the McGee Applied Research Center for Narrative Studies at Vanderbilt University and the former director of News Co/Lab, an ASU Cronkite School initiative aimed at advancing media literacy. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Jump ahead:
The definition of misinformation
Steps for evaluating online health information
How to approach a conversation with someone who is spreading a falsehood
How to build a healthier media diet
Mia Armstrong-López: What is health misinformation?
Kristy Roschke: I take a pretty broad view of misinformation, which is just information that is false. So in the realm of health, that would be content that does not have the evidence behind it to produce good health outcomes.
MAL: Let's say I see someone on Facebook sharing something about the flu vaccine, and I'm trying to determine whether that information is accurate. What's the mental checklist I should go through?
KR: The first thing that you want to do is think about who shared it. There's usually a couple of layers there. Maybe it was an aunt that shared it on Facebook, but your aunt probably wasn't the originator of that information. So let's say she's sharing a post from somebody: You want to peel back that onion a little bit to say, Who is this coming from? Is this coming from an individual, an organization, a news outlet, a website? And you want to assign a credibility assessment to each layer of that. Is your aunt someone that you trust? Does she have a background in healthcare? Is she an expert? Has she shared questionable things before? You always want to be thinking about who the author is and what their intent might be. And when I say intent, I don't mean Are they trying to fool you? It's more: Do we know what their values are? Do we know what they are promoting? With that knowledge, you might decide to carry on or dismiss the content.
If you’re still confused, then you want to take it outside Facebook and bring it to a search engine to check sites that you know are reputable. Some very easy ones to access are the Mayo Clinic or the Cleveland Clinic. WebMD is a more general but perfectly fine resource that has experts on its editorial board.
Then, ultimately, you probably want to ask a medical provider, and sometimes that's hard to do, so I get why that might not be possible. But it's always always good to double check with an expert, someone you know and trust.
MAL: Let's say I determine the information is false or suspicious. What’s my next step?
KR: The advice that I give is: There is no reason to fact-check this person publicly, because no good generally comes from publicly outing someone for sharing bad information. This person may have very strong feelings about it, and if you come in with your evidence and say, “Oh, no, no!” in front of a crowd, that will not have the outcome you intend.
So if you feel strongly that the information this person shared is false and harmful, I would privately contact that person. The suggestion is always to be kind, have empathy. I usually recommend sharing some sort of link to evidence. But I don't think the message of “I have the evidence” is compelling. It would be something more along the lines of: “I saw what you shared about the flu vaccine. I wanted to share a study that I read recently that indicates health outcomes for people over 65 are greatly improved if they get an annual flu vaccine”—or whatever it is. And then you just present them with that and say, “I wanted you to know I've been getting my flu shot every year, and it's worked out really well for me.”
MAL: Now let’s say instead of on Facebook, I'm having family dinner with my aunt, and she's making these claims in person. Does that change my approach, or the dynamics at all?
KR: I don't think it should change your approach. Of course, pulling up an article on your phone in person is maybe not the best approach in that moment. In-person is especially tricky because we have to deal more directly with the impact of our words. So it's especially important to emphasize kindness and that you care for this person. When we're arguing about the best way to approach our health, it’s easier to show that your concern is for them and for their health outcomes or the health outcomes of their family.
MAL: We're all bombarded by so much information about what we should be doing with our health. How can we build healthier media diets?
KR: There are a couple of different ways we engage with health information. The first one is, There seems to be something wrong with me, what is it? We have a specific question, and we want a specific answer. Usually we're going to go to a search engine, and we want to favor some of the sites that I mentioned before, which are things like the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, WebMD—they're all gonna have very similar information. Sometimes I look at multiple of them.
Another way you might engage with health information is finding content on social media. So in those scenarios, you want to look at what the creator’s qualifications are. There are some really interesting healthcare providers creating content online, and they can be great sources of debunking misinformation, telling us the best ways to do different things. But of course, there are also a lot of people who don't have qualifications doing the same thing. So that's where you want to try to look at profiles and find out how they describe themselves, look at what other types of content that they post, and then it’s also not a bad idea to search for them on Google, too. Try to figure out if that person has credentials that make them worth your time.
And then, this advice is not new, but: If it seems too good to be true, it always is. No one can lose 20 pounds in a week. No amount of sit-ups is going to give you washboard abs in 30 days. No one pill is going to do everything for you.
We know these things in our heads. But we make decisions with lots of other parts of our bodies beyond just our heads. In addition to seeking out other people's qualifications when you're looking at a piece of health content, you also want to think about your own motivations. And sometimes that's even more important: Why are you interested in a type of content? Maybe it's to look better, to feel better, to bypass something that's really complicated. Knowing what we're bringing to the table and what we’re drawn to when we consume health information is important.
Do you have a question or topic you’d like us to tackle or an expert we should interview? Reach out at any time—we’d love to hear from you.