Community-Based Organizations as Effective Partners in the Battle Against Misinformation

Role of life satisfaction, emotional support, and feeling of social isolation on adherence to breast cancer screening recommendations among US women

BACKGROUND

Psychosocial factors can play important roles in promoting preventive health behaviors. This study aimed to assess how life satisfaction, receipt of emotional support, and feeling of social isolation were associated with adherence to the USPSTF recommendation of breast cancer screening in a nationally representative US population.

METHODS

Using data on 71,583 women aged 50 to 74 years, from the 2022 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey, we estimated multivariable logistic regressions to assess the odds of adherence across different categories of the respective psychosocial constructs. We accounted for various demographic and socioeconomic correlates and checked the robustness of the relationship within income and educational sub-groups.

RESULTS

We found that women who were dissatisfied with their life were 52.0% less likely to adhere compared to women who reported to be very satisfied. Similarly, women who rarely/never got emotional support and who always/usually felt socially isolated were 51.6% and 39.9% less likely to adhere, compared to women who always got support and never felt isolated, respectively. These results were robust across different levels of income and educational attainment.

CONCLUSION

Our findings demonstrated a strong association between social environment, psychological wellbeing, and adherence to breast cancer screening, and thus suggested scope of potential psychosocial interventions to improve adherence.

POLICY SUMMARY

Efforts to improve women's psychosocial wellbeing could facilitate compliance with breast cancer screening recommendations.

Lights, Facts, and Goals: A Novel Framework to Enhance Community Health Messaging Campaign Design, Implementation, and Assessment

The spread of health misinformation has made the task of health communicators more difficult. However, the success of health messaging hinges not only on meaningful message content but also on the credibility of who is delivering the message. "Trusted messengers," like local leaders and community-based organizations, have a greater ability to influence improvements in community health, due to their shared cultural experience with their communities. Health communication agencies should empower trusted messengers with the tools they need to succeed in health communication. One tool critical for their success is a succinct health messaging framework to plan and implement health messaging. Marketing has "See, Think, Do"-a simple, practical framework used to influence consumer purchases. As a more trustworthy corollary, we propose the "Lights, Facts, and Goals" framework, a concise, authentic, and transparent method for planning, implementing, and assessing health messaging campaigns that influence health improvements. "Lights" refers to different methods of reaching communities like trusted messengers, advertisements, and text messages. "Facts" refers to key sourced scientific information relevant to a specific aspect of community health. "Goals" refers to actions community members can take to improve their health in connection with the communicated health facts. This article describes how the "Lights, Facts, and Goals" framework both simplifies the creation and communication of scientifically sound health messaging and strengthens the partnership between health agencies and trusted messengers in the community. Through "Lights, Facts, and Goals," community-based organizations, community leaders, and their partners will be more effective at improving community health through messaging.

Fighting the infodemic: the 4 i Framework for Advancing Communication and Trust

BACKGROUND

The proliferation of false and misleading health claims poses a major threat to public health. This ongoing "infodemic" has prompted numerous organizations to develop tools and approaches to manage the spread of falsehoods and communicate more effectively in an environment of mistrust and misleading information. However, these tools and approaches have not been systematically characterized, limiting their utility. This analysis provides a characterization of the current ecosystem of infodemic management strategies, allowing public health practitioners, communicators, researchers, and policy makers to gain an understanding of the tools at their disposal.

METHODS

A multi-pronged search strategy was used to identify tools and approaches for combatting health-related misinformation and disinformation. The search strategy included a scoping review of academic literature; a review of gray literature from organizations involved in public health communications and misinformation/disinformation management; and a review of policies and infodemic management approaches from all U.S. state health departments and select local health departments. A team of annotators labelled the main feature(s) of each tool or approach using an iteratively developed list of tags.

RESULTS

We identified over 350 infodemic management tools and approaches. We introduce the 4 i Framework for Advancing Communication and Trust (4 i FACT), a modified social-ecological model, to characterize different levels of infodemic intervention: informational, individual, interpersonal, and institutional. Information-level strategies included those designed to amplify factual information, fill information voids, debunk false information, track circulating information, and verify, detect, or rate the credibility of information. Individual-level strategies included those designed to enhance information literacy and prebunking/inoculation tools. Strategies at the interpersonal/community level included resources for public health communicators and community engagement approaches. Institutional and structural approaches included resources for journalists and fact checkers, tools for managing academic/scientific literature, resources for infodemic researchers/research, resources for infodemic managers, social media regulation, and policy/legislation.

CONCLUSIONS

The 4 i FACT provides a useful way to characterize the current ecosystem of infodemic management strategies. Recognizing the complex and multifaceted nature of the ongoing infodemic, efforts should be taken to utilize and integrate strategies across all four levels of the modified social-ecological model.

Multilevel Determinants of Digital Health Equity: A Literature Synthesis to Advance the Field

Current digital health approaches have not engaged diverse end users or reduced health or health care inequities, despite their promise to deliver more tailored and personalized support to individuals at the right time and the right place. To achieve digital health equity, we must refocus our attention on the current state of digital health uptake and use across the policy, system, community, individual, and intervention levels. We focus here on (a) outlining a multilevel framework underlying digital health equity; (b) summarizingfive types of interventions/programs (with example studies) that hold promise for advancing digital health equity; and (c) recommending future steps for improving policy, practice, and research in this space.