WHO And UNICEF Created A Manual For Reporting Data About Infodemics
On the 20 th of July, following the invitation by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, employees of “Astra Forum” Foundation joined the webinar organized by them that was devoted to infodemics. Infodemics management is a strategic instrument for organizations such as “Astra Forum” Foundation, who work in disinformation and scientifically based approaches. It will contribute for the implementation of effective management and counteraction of disinformation all around the world, in order to maximize the scope and impact of these organizations as a guarantee that their evidence- based messages reach the necessary audience in order to have better informed, rational and healthy society.
After the official presentation of a manual, created for reporting data about infodemics (Infodemic Insights Report), WHO and UNICEF organized sequence of webinars on the topic of participation by academic society representatives’ participation, partners of the civil sector and organizations in public healthcare. The webinar held on the 20 th of July reviewed the topics of fairness principles when elaborating infodemographic knowledge, the manners for constructing and strengthening partnerships, the basic skills an infodemic manager needs to have, analytical approaches and good practices. The panellists were Alhasan Ibrahim, WHO, Silviya Somariva, UNICEF, Chris Vogeli, CDC of the USA, Stefan Mandich-Raychevich, Belgrade University. The meeting moderator was Elodi Ho, coordinator of the Africa Infodemic Response Alliance (AIRA), WHO.
If there is no available high quality health information and people’s questions and fears remain unanswered, disinformation in healthcare could rapidly disseminate and impact the decisions made by people concerning their health. In reply to the need of figuring out information environment in healthcare and supporting health workers in communicating better and their messages making it to people, and in order to promote such a behaviour, which results in better healthcare, WHO and UNICEF in cooperation with its networks and partners, presented their innovative manual and supporting instruments for holding a social listening. What makes this instrument unique is that it is based on evidence and reproducible process whereas integrated analysis is performed of online and offline data sets for knowledge accumulation and preparation of recommendations for actions in order to improve public health. At the presentation of the manual by Surani Abeysekera, UNICEF, she stated that infodemics and disinformation are being disseminated in the context of constantly changing information environment.
The manual about infodemics should be used by people who perform the functions in information
management within the structures of the UN agencies, public health institutes at national level, various health divisions, fact check organizations etc. The manual is useful for persons experience in digital analyses, digital health, communications, behavioural sciences, health information analysis, health promotion, actions in emergencies and the related fields within the context of public health. The manual presents numerous examples and resource information that support the process of elaborating infodemographic analyses, which could be applied towards numerous health-related topics.
Alhasan Ibrahim from the WHO presented practical pieces of advice for people occupied with the research of disinformation topic. He explained clearly the interaction between the various information sources and platforms and how they reach the particular individual, who in turn represents some of the comprehensive information field’s structure. He underlined that when preparing the infodemic analysis, it is of key importance to take into consideration territorial and cultural features which shows “information environment” is not a static notion. The differences between the trust levels in health information, in Kenya and Sweden, for example, could result in various reactions and approaches by society in both cases. The Swedish citizens would be inclined to accept and follow the recommendations and guidelines based on the available information with higher trust. At the same time, in Kenya there could be more doubts and distrust towards health recommendations that results in poorer attraction and adherence to these recommendations by society.
Improved analytical approaches towards listening in social media were presented by Silviya Somariva, expert in digital communication and digital strategies to UNICEF. She highlighted the foundations on which every listening in social networks should step – equal-footed prerequisites, personal data protection measures, clearly stated task and good estimate of different social groups’ representation in the various communication platforms. Examples were presented of analytical approaches and how to use quantitative data for preparing quality in-depth analysis.
Chris Vogeli, CDC of the USA speaks about mitigation of imprecise health information. He focused his attention on fairness and equality and their significance in data analyses and research works. He described ways of inclusion based on fairness in data analysis, including risk assessment on the grounds of impact and taking people’s fears into consideration. He underlined that while presenting the information in the pattern of analysis we need to cope with people’s worries and not to contribute for stigmatizing the issue. At the same time worries and people’s point of view should not be neglected. Chris Vogeli highlighted that all the voices should be heard and points of view of the researched communities, so that we could prepare an objective end product. Namely because of this, in order to research an issue, we need to include elements such as in-depth interviews, researches and focal groups, in order to ensure that analyses would effectively reflect community’s needs.
The last speaker was Stefan Mandich-Raychevich from the Institute of Social Medicine to the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Belgrade. He shared Serbia’s experience in the first steps of building expert experience in managing information, and underlined how important it is to build partnerships with the international organizations and the support of national authorities in these processes. In particular, he paid attention to journalists’ role on the topic and told about the cooperation with journalist association in the country. Processes in Srbia progressed so much that they created Laboratory for infodemiology to the Medical faculty of the Belgrade University, with the support of the WHO office. It was attended by multidisciplinary team that performs researches and supports infodemics management in the country and the region.