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. 2021 Jul;51(10):1763-1769.
doi: 10.1017/S003329172000224X. Epub 2020 Jun 9.

Health-protective behaviour, social media usage and conspiracy belief during the COVID-19 public health emergency

Daniel Allington  1 , Bobby Duffy  2 , Simon Wessely  3 , Nayana Dhavan  1 , James Rubin  3
Affiliations

Health-protective behaviour, social media usage and conspiracy belief during the COVID-19 public health emergency

Daniel Allington et al. Psychol Med. 2021 Jul.

Erratum in

Abstract

Background: Social media platforms have long been recognised as major disseminators of health misinformation. Many previous studies have found a negative association between health-protective behaviours and belief in the specific form of misinformation popularly known as 'conspiracy theory'. Concerns have arisen regarding the spread of COVID-19 conspiracy theories on social media.

Methods: Three questionnaire surveys of social media use, conspiracy beliefs and health-protective behaviours with regard to COVID-19 among UK residents were carried out online, one using a self-selecting sample (N = 949) and two using stratified random samples from a recruited panel (N = 2250, N = 2254).

Results: All three studies found a negative relationship between COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs and COVID-19 health-protective behaviours, and a positive relationship between COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs and use of social media as a source of information about COVID-19. Studies 2 and 3 also found a negative relationship between COVID-19 health-protective behaviours and use of social media as a source of information, and Study 3 found a positive relationship between health-protective behaviours and use of broadcast media as a source of information.

Conclusions: When used as an information source, unregulated social media may present a health risk that is partly but not wholly reducible to their role as disseminators of health-related conspiracy beliefs.

Keywords: COVID-19; Conspiracy beliefs; health-protective behaviours; public health; social media.

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References

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