Right now, Americans have some big decisions to make: deciding whether a COVID-19 booster shot is right for them, if and when to vaccinate their children, and if they should get the vaccine assuming theyve made it this long without getting sick.

While these decisions might seem like easy ones to make for some medical professionals, the spread of misinformation often blurs the lines between right and wrong for the general public.

UNC and Duke professor Brian Southwell is an expert in communication and human behavior. He said the way people encounter and process misinformation is often overlooked.

We tend to think about misinformation as this threat thats out there, its insidious, were really worried about its prevalence, and certainly there are legitimate concerns in that regard, Southwell said. But its also important to keep in mind that actually all of us are vulnerable to misinformation based on what we know about the way that the brain works.

Southwell said humans tend to take in information at face value and may lack the energy or motivation to independently fact check sources before sharing with their personal networks. This leaves the door open for the subsequent spread of fake news especially on social media.

One of the issues right now is weve got this flattened landscape, where if youre looking on your phone you can find information from all over, but we arent necessarily thinking about where that comes from, Southwell said. So perhaps if we build up a bit more of a trusted relationship with a few information sources over time, that you can go back to, that can turn out to be really helpful as well.

He said once people accept that we are all susceptible to spreading misinformation, it becomes easier to have empathy for others. This is especially important in a clinical setting, and even more so during a global pandemic.

One of the things that we generally advise is that we need clinicians to actually pay attention to patients as people, Southwell said. You know they do that in lots of different dimensions, but when it comes to that piece of misinformation that theyre trying to point to, sometimes theres some frustration there and theres some exasperation.

To help clinicians better communicate and partner with patients, Southwell has helped develop a workshop series titled The Duke Program on Medical Misinformation. This program aims to build the patient-provider relationship in a way that encourages psychologically safe conversations about all types of medical information, regardless of accuracy.

Rather than dismissing misinformation right away or immediately spouting peer-reviewed evidence, workshop curriculum teaches providers to ask questions and try to understand why the patient thinks the way they do.

This is very different than just saying oh, whatever you say is right, Southwell said. Its not accepting false information. But instead trying to focus in on what it is that that patient is trying to express in terms of their values and preferences. And then once we know that, trying to direct them towards credible information thats really relevant to the issue that theyre raising.

Southwell said making space for constructive conversations that allow room for someones personal views and beliefs is a good step towards halting further polarization in the country. He said we need more patience, tolerance, and empathy to better understand each other and gently lead people to more credible sources.

You know, were all in this together, Southwell said. So, the more that we end up in a situation of polarization and just dismissing certain people outright, not letting them back into our family discussions or our friendship group because of some outlandish claim that they were espousing six months ago, thats going to lead to a really difficult spot for us. So, what were trying to do here is leave the door open for us to come back together as a society, which I think is going to be important given the severity of the challenges that were facing.

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UNC Expert Offers Tips on How To Combat COVID-19 Misinformation in Public Health - Chapelboro.com