Refuting Spurious COVID-19 Treatment Claims Reduces Demand and Misinformation Sharing

Area of Science:

• Health communication
• Behavioral economics
• Psychology

Background:

• The COVID-19 pandemic amplified health misinformation, leading to significant harm and societal costs.
• Previous research primarily relied on questionnaire-based reasoning measures to assess misinformation impact.
• Understanding the influence of misinformation on consumer behavior and online sharing is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effect of health misinformation on willingness-to-pay for unproven treatments.
• To examine the impact of misinformation on the propensity to promote false health information online.
• To evaluate the efficacy of two interventions in counteracting health misinformation.

Main Methods:

• A study involving 678 participants assessed hypothetical demand (willingness-to-pay) and online promotion propensity.
• Two interventions were tested: a tentative refutation (health authority materials) and an enhanced refutation (best-practice guidelines).
• A novel approach was employed, moving beyond traditional questionnaire-based reasoning measures.

Main Results:

• Prior exposure to misinformation increased the promotion of misinformation by 18%.
• Both tentative and enhanced refutations significantly reduced demand for unproven treatments (18% and 25%, respectively).
• Enhanced refutations were more effective in reducing misinformation promotion (55%) compared to tentative refutations (29%).

Conclusions:

• Exposure to health misinformation increases both demand for unproven treatments and the likelihood of sharing false content.
• Debunking interventions, particularly those following best-practice guidelines, can effectively mitigate the negative impacts of health misinformation.
• Enhanced refutations demonstrate superior effectiveness in curbing the online promotion of health misinformation.