If there’s anything we have learned from the pandemic, it’s that health information and misinformation are plentiful. We’ve also learned that health news can be incredibly confusing when it’s coming at us rapidly. How do we start to make sense of the health news articles we read, whether or not they’re about COVID, when we …
Continue reading “Making Sense of Health News and Information”
If you’ve set foot in your local supermarkets lately, you may have noticed cleaning products appearing on the shelves again. In some cases, sales are limited to one or two items per person, and brand name items like Lysol spray and wipes may still be rare finds. Thanks to “the great fomite freakout,” (Morris as …
I don’t want this blog to turn into correcting the media reports about COVID or pointing out their flaws (check out HealthNewsReview.org for that), but I do think it’s important to point out some common misconceptions people have after reading media reports about science; these misconceptions have only been heightened during COVID, especially as more …
Continue reading “COVID-19 Reporting and Scientific Communication Confusion”
October is health literacy month, so it’s appropriate to use this as the month I kick off a blog about health information. According to the Health Resources and Services Administration, health literacy is “the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information needed to make appropriate health decisions.” …
Christina J. Steffy