Dr. Michelle Falkenbach
Dr. Michelle Falkenbach, a postdoctoral associate in the Cornell MPH Program, along with Raffael Heiss, Madeleine Waser, and Jakob-Moritz Eberl examined the European response to the spread of misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic.
The team of global researchers recently published their technical report for the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. The paper examines how governments and public health agencies responded to misinformation throughout the COVID-19 pandemic throughout Europe.
“We talked to factcheckers and information experts from six European countries (Austria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Norway, and Romania). Through our interviews, we identified five primary response activities: the establishment of task forces, the strategic use of online communication, the involvement of health experts, restrictions to the free flow of information, and the effort to improve the populations health literacy and media literacy,” said Falkenbach.
The researchers determined that independent fact checkers, literacy tools, and education were the most effective methods of combatting misinformation in Europe.
Written by Katie Lesser