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. 2023 Nov 3;18(11):e0293288.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0293288. eCollection 2023.

iHeard STL: Development and first year findings from a local surveillance and rapid response system for addressing COVID-19 and other health misinformation

Kimberly J Johnson  1 , Olivia Weng  1 , Hannah Kinzer  1 , Ayokunle Olagoke  2 , Balaji Golla  1 , Caitlin O'Connell  1 , Taylor Butler  1 , Yoseph Worku  1 , Matthew W Kreuter  1
Affiliations

iHeard STL: Development and first year findings from a local surveillance and rapid response system for addressing COVID-19 and other health misinformation

Kimberly J Johnson et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Background: The U.S. Surgeon General and others have emphasized a critical need to address COVID-19 misinformation to protect public health. In St. Louis, MO, we created iHeard STL, a community-level misinformation surveillance and response system. This paper reports methods and findings from its first year of operation.

Methods: We assembled a panel of over 200 community members who answered brief, weekly mobile phone surveys to share information they heard in the last seven days. Based on their responses, we prioritized misinformation threats. Weekly surveillance data, misinformation priorities, and accurate responses to each misinformation threat were shared on a public dashboard and sent to community organizations in weekly alerts. We used logistic regression to estimate odds ratios (ORs) for associations between panel member characteristics and misinformation exposure and belief.

Results: In the first year, 214 panel members were enrolled. Weekly survey response rates were high (mean = 88.3% ± 6%). Exposure to a sample of COVID-19 misinformation items did not differ significantly by panel member age category or gender; however, African American panel members had significantly higher reported odds of exposure and belief/uncertain belief in some misinformation items (ORs from 3.4 to 17.1) compared to white panel members.

Conclusions: Our first-year experience suggests that this systematic, community-based approach to assessing and addressing misinformation is feasible, sustainable, and a promising strategy for responding to the threat of health misinformation. In addition, further studies are needed to understand whether structural factors such as medical mistrust underly the observed racial differences in exposure and belief.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. The weekly response (%) from August 2021 to August 2022.
Fig 2
Fig 2
Trends of weekly exposure (blue) and weekly belief (coral) of four inaccurate information items: (a) VaxFail; (b) VaxDanger; (c) KidMask; (d) Ivermectin.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Percent of non-Washington University email recipients who viewed (grey) and engaged (black) in weekly misinformation alerts from 3/24/2022 to 6/30/2022.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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