Management of infodemics in outbreaks or health crises: a systematic review

The World Health Organization (WHO) defined an infodemic as an overabundance of information, accurate or not, in the digital and physical space, accompanying an acute health event such as an outbreak or epidemic. It can impact people's risk perceptions, trust, and confidence in the health system, and health workers. As an immediate response, the WHO developed the infodemic management (IM) frameworks, research agenda, intervention frameworks, competencies, and processes for reference by health authorities.

This systematic review explored the response to and during acute health events by health authorities and other organizations operating in health. It also assessed the effectiveness of the current interventions.

On 26 June 2023, an online database search included Medline (Ovid), Embase, Cochrane Library, Scopus, Epistemonikos, and the WHO website. It included English-only, peer-reviewed studies or reports covering IM processes applied by health organizations that reported their effectiveness. There was no restriction on publication dates. Two independent reviewers conducted all screening, inclusion, and quality assessments, and a third reviewer arbitrated any disagreement between the two reviewers.

Reviewers identified 945 records. After a final assessment, 29 studies were included in the review and were published between 2021 and 2023. Some countries (Pakistan, Yemen, Spain, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, United Kingdom, United States, New Zealand, Finland, South Korea, and Russia) applied different methods of IM to people's behaviors. These included but were not limited to launching media and TV conservations, using web and scientific database searches, posting science-based COVID-19 information, implementing online surveys, and creating an innovative ecosystem of digital tools, and an Early AI-supported response with Social Listening (EARS) platform. Most of the interventions were effective in containing the harmful effects of COVID-19 infodemic. However, the quality of the evidence was not robust.

Most of the infodemic interventions applied during COVID-19 fall within the recommended actions of the WHO IM ecosystem. As a result, the study suggests that more research is needed into the challenges facing health systems in different operational environments and country contexts in relation to designing, implementing, and evaluating IM interventions, strategies, policies, and systems.