Health Literacy, Equity, and Communication in the COVID-19 Era of Misinformation: Emergence of Health Information Professionals in Infodemic Management

Abstract

The health information management (HIM) field's contribution to health care delivery is invaluable in a pandemic context where the need for accurate diagnoses will hasten responsive, evidence-based decision-making. The COVID-19 pandemic offers a unique opportunity to transform the practice of HIM and bring more awareness to the role that frontline workers play behind the scenes in safeguarding reliable, comprehensive, accurate, and timely health information. This transformation will support future research, utilization management, public health surveillance, and forecasting and enable key stakeholders to plan and ensure equitable health care resource allocation, especially for the most vulnerable populations. In this paper, we juxtapose critical health literacy, public policy, and HIM perspectives to understand the COVID-19 infodemic and new opportunities for HIM in infodemic management.

Keywords: COVID-19; digital literacy; equity; health information; health information management; health literacy; infodemic; infodemiology; infoveillance; pandemic; public policy; social media.