Misinformation on Twitter negatively affects adult health decisions

British and American adult smokers who were considering using e-cigarettes were put off when exposed to tweets falsely implying that the devices are more harmful than conventional cigarettes, new research shows. The study, published in BMJ Open and led by researchers from the University of Bristol (UK) and the University of Pennsylvania (US), is the first to examine the effect of this type of exposure which has important implications for the public health.

While existing studies have examined current perceptions of e-cigarette harms, little is known about the role of exposure to social media misinformation on these perceptions, and therefore on intentions and use. of the electronic cigarette.

In this Cancer Research UK (CRUK) -funded study, researchers at Bristol Medical School and Penn’s Annenberg School for Communication recruited 2,400 adult smokers from the US and UK who were not currently using of e-cigarettes to participate in an online randomized controlled experiment to assess the effect of exposure to misinformation about the harms of e-cigarettes on Twitter on current adult smokers’ intention to quit. They also assessed their intention to buy electronic cigarettes and their perceived relative harm of electronic cigarettes compared to regular cigarettes.

Participants were shown different types of health related information and asked for their opinion on e-cigarettes, and asked about their intention to quit smoking, their intention to buy e-cigarettes and the perceived relative harms of electronic cigarettes versus regular cigarettes. . After randomization, they were asked to view one tweet at a time in random order (four tweets in total) and asked short questions about each tweet, in terms of the perceived effectiveness of the tweet; likelihood of replying, retweeting, liking and sharing the tweet; and their emotional response to the tweet.

Results showed current adult smokers in the US and UK were discouraged from considering e-cigarette use even after brief exposure to tweets that e-cigarettes are as or more harmful than smoking. , which suggests that misinformation about the harms of electronic cigarettes may negatively influence the decisions of adult smokers. consider using electronic cigarettes as a way to quit smoking. Conversely, the results revealed that American adult smokers may be encouraged to use e-cigarettes and view them as less harmful than regular cigarettes, after being exposed to tweets that e-cigarettes are completely harmless.

Andy Tan, associate professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Health Communication & Equity Lab, explains: “This is the first study to explore the effect of exposure to disinformation. on the harms of electronic cigarettes on Twitter among smokers. These findings are important because they show that even brief exposure to e-cigarette misinformation can hamper efforts to reduce the smoking burden on current smokers in the US and UK. “

Dr Caroline Wright, Senior Research Associate and CRUK Population Research Postdoctoral Fellow at Bristol Medical School and lead author of the study, said: Health information, and 75% of American adults use the Internet as their primary source of health information. More and more people are coming across free and publicly available health information through social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook. However, this ease of access to information comes at a price, as the spread of disinformation can negatively impact people’s health choices and behavior. In this context, we remind smokers that although electronic cigarettes are not completely harmless, their short-term health risks are considerably lower than those of regular cigarettes. We encourage smokers who access information online to check their national health agency or specific e-cigarette information.

“For healthcare providers, we recommend being aware that your patients may have been influenced by misinformation on social media, and therefore may have misperceptions about e-cigarettes. Correct misperceptions and think about ways you can support your patients, so that they are able to identify specific health information. And finally, for policy makers: ensure that all social media research associated with e-cigarettes is reported by official health guidelines, regulate all forms of social media disinformation, and improve public awareness and skills needed to research specific information. ”