![]() ![]() But many people across the political spectrum still place high levels of trust in their personal physicians. Public trust in government agencies and health professionals access to vaccines and treatments and accurate, clear, nonjudgmental information about COVID-19 are key to counteracting misinformation about the disease.American attitudes toward scientific expertise have become increasingly contentious in recent years. Those were some of the takeaways from Infodemic: A Stanford Conference on Social Media and COVID-19 Misinformation, a virtual event that brought together experts in biomedical ethics, public health and medicine with representatives from social media companies, the faith community and government. “Infodemics are often defined as too much information - an abundance, an overabundance, of good and bad,” said Heidi Larson, PhD, the founding director of the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. They are challenging when they are negative, but there is an opportunity that credible information and trusted voices can also have a viral nature.” “But what is even more important than the sheer quantity of information is its dynamic, fast-moving and fast-changing nature - like epidemics, which spread quickly through populations. Stemming the tide of misinformation, or inaccurate information, and disinformation, or deliberately misleading information, is critical to increasing vaccination rates across the country, particularly in underserved communities. Black Americans are 1.4 times less likely than white Americans to be vaccinated.ĭistrust in the Black community of medical professionals is long-standing, deep-seated and justified, said health equity expert Italo Brown, MD, clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at Stanford. “Black communities have a lasting and lingering distrust of health care, of health care providers, and of the systems and institutions that have supported it,” said Brown, citing centuries of abuse of Black Americans that began with the slave trade. ![]() “Currently, we still see elements of mistreatment in the medical system. We can’t continue to gaslight communities of color around this topic.” Reversing that mistrust will require conversations on restorative justice, partnerships with trusted messengers, and innovative and culturally sensitive ways to share accurate information about the virus. “Our culture tends to be very viral,” said Brown, who is African American. “Oral tradition is as common to us as the sound a hot comb makes when you put it on a stove. But we struggle because that chain of information very seldom has fact checkers - people who we trust who can give us adequate information in languages with a sense of cultural competency and linguistic appropriateness tailored to the Black community.” Lack of access When we learn about information, it’s often passed down a chain. ![]() In many cases, the problem may be less about hesitancy to be vaccinated than about lack of access to vaccine sites and reliable information. “When some people have access to the medical system, and some do not, that underlies some of this distrust.” “If you don’t have a regular doctor, you don’t have a trusted source in the medical field to resort to,” said Gloria Giraldo of Latino Health Access. Inequities in global vaccine distribution may also drive skepticism about the motives of vaccine makers and public health officials, Giraldo said, especially among immigrants worried about friends and family members in countries with inadequate vaccine supplies. Giraldo challenged public health officials to “walk the talk” by focusing not just on vaccine-distribution efforts in underserved communities, but also by acting as partners with the community. ![]()
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