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In February 2020, the World Health Organization announced an ‘infodemic’—a deluge of both accurate and inaccurate health information—that accompanied the global pandemic of COVID-19 as a major challenge to effective health communication. We assessed content from the most active vaccine accounts on Twitter to understand how existing online communities contributed to the ‘infodemic’ during the early stages of the pandemic.

This paper discusses patterns of public health misinformation observed during infectious disease epidemics. Specifically, we group epidemic-related misinformation into four categories: transmission, prevention, treatment, and vaccination. By developing tools, algorithms, and other resources around these categories, institutions, companies, and individuals can proactively limit and counter the spread of misinformation and its potential negative health effects. 

Surveys of nearly 2,500 Americans, conducted during a measles outbreak, suggest that users of traditional media are less likely to be misinformed about vaccines than social media users. Results also suggest that an individual’s level of trust in medical experts affects the likelihood that a person’s beliefs about vaccination will change.