While health misinformation and disinformation long preceded the pandemic, the pervasiveness of false and inaccurate information about COVID-19 and vaccines brought into further focus the extent to which misinformation can distort public health policy debates and impact the health choices individuals make. KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor surveys in 2021 and 2022 found that large shares of the public believed or were uncertain about false claims related to COVID vaccines and treatments, including myths about the vaccines’ effects on pregnancy and fertility. These surveys also highlighted the roles of traditional and social media as vehicles for spreading and/or combatting misinformation, showing a strong relationship between individuals’ trusted news sources and their propensity to believe false claims about COVID-19.
KFF has focused on providing reliable, accurate, and non-partisan information to help inform health policy in the United States. Yet, in a time where health-related misinformation is so easily accessible and disseminated, understanding the dynamics of misinformation is important to help ensure a robust and fact-based health policy environment. With this understanding, KFF is designing a new program that will identify and track the rise and prevalence of health-related misinformation in the United States, with a special focus on communities that are most adversely affected by health misinformation.
KFF is releasing our Health Misinformation Tracking Poll Pilot as part of this effort, examining the public’s media use and trust in sources of health information and measuring the reach of specific false and inaccurate claims surrounding three health-related topics: COVID-19 and vaccines, reproductive health, and gun violence. Accompanying this overview report of the pilot poll will be snapshot reports to the field, examining the implications for understanding and combatting misinformation among key groups, including Black adults, Hispanic adults, and rural residents, which KFF will release later this month. Future surveys will explore other health topics for which misinformation has been found to be circulating.
The Misinformation Tracking Poll will work in tandem with our forthcoming Health Misinformation Monitor, a detailed report of the landscape of current health misinformation messages circulating among the public, sent directly to professionals working to combat misinformation. The Misinformation Monitor will be an integral part of KFF’s efforts to deeper analyze the dynamics of misinformation and inform a robust, fact-based health information environment, and will inform the topics we will ask about on future Health Misinformation Tracking Polls.