Tweeting for Health Using Real-time Mining and Artificial Intelligence-Based Analytics: Design and Development of a Big Data Ecosystem for Detecting and Analyzing Misinformation on Twitter.

BACKGROUND: Digital misinformation, primarily on social media, has led to harmful and costly beliefs in the general population. Notably, these beliefs have resulted in public health crises to the detriment of governments worldwide and their citizens. However, public health officials need access to a comprehensive system capable of mining and analyzing large volumes of social media data in real time. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to design and develop a big data pipeline and ecosystem (UbiLab Misinformation Analysis System [U-MAS]) to identify and analyze false or misleading information disseminated via social media on a certain topic or set of related topics. METHODS: U-MAS is a platform-independent ecosystem developed in Python that leverages the Twitter V2 application programming interface and the Elastic Stack. The U-MAS expert system has 5 major components: data extraction framework, latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic model, sentiment analyzer, misinformation classification model, and Elastic Cloud deployment (indexing of data and visualizations). The data extraction framework queries the data through the Twitter V2 application programming interface, with queries identified by public health experts. The LDA topic model, sentiment analyzer, and misinformation classification model are independently trained using a small, expert-validated subset of the extracted data. These models are then incorporated into U-MAS to analyze and classify the remaining data. Finally, the analyzed data are loaded into an index in the Elastic Cloud deployment and can then be presented on dashboards with advanced visualizations and analytics pertinent to infodemiology and infoveillance analysis. RESULTS: U-MAS performed efficiently and accurately. Independent investigators have successfully used the system to extract significant insights into a fluoride-related health misinformation use case (2016 to 2021). The system is currently used for a vaccine hesitancy use case (2007 to 2022) and a heat wave-related illnesses use case (2011 to 2022). Each component in the system for the fluoride misinformation use case performed as expected. The data extraction framework handles large amounts of data within short periods. The LDA topic models achieved relatively high coherence values (0.54), and the predicted topics were accurate and befitting to the data. The sentiment analyzer performed at a correlation coefficient of 0.72 but could be improved in further iterations. The misinformation classifier attained a satisfactory correlation coefficient of 0.82 against expert-validated data. Moreover, the output dashboard and analytics hosted on the Elastic Cloud deployment are intuitive for researchers without a technical background and comprehensive in their visualization and analytics capabilities. In fact, the investigators of the fluoride misinformation use case have successfully used the system to extract interesting and important insights into public health, which have been published separately. CONCLUSIONS: The novel U-MAS pipeline has the potential to detect and analyze misleading information related to a particular topic or set of related topics.

Disinformation in Social Networks: A Systematic Review on Fake News in Times of Pandemic

The use of social media, low literacy, fast information sharing and preprint services are identified as the main causes of the infodemic [4] and among its consequences we find that it can promote public health risk behaviors globally. The results of Fake news represents a threat to societies in the context of the pandemic. The aim of this article is to review existing research on fake news in the last 2 years, discussing the characteristics of infodemics, media/digital literacy and its impact on society, as well as highlighting mechanisms to detect and curb fake news on covid-19 in social networks. Thirty articles were analyzed and selected from 1354 open access articles on this subject. The conclusion was that knowledge of fake news should be taken note of due to the harmful effects on society, considering the informational contexts (epistemic, normative and emotional), together with media literacy to increase trust and emphasize public health messages with emotionally relevant and scientifically based content, in order to continue conducting research that allows a 100% effective recognition and elimination of untruthful information on social networks. © 2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

Impact of risk communication on patient's safety during the pandemic.

More than 2 years has passed since the pandemic was declared in 2019 due to the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which was later declared to be the pathogen causing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). During this time, many healthcare systems faced numerous challenges to control the high morbidity and mortality of the disease. Unlike previous pandemics, the actions against this pandemic started quickly on both the global and country levels. These actions were, scientifically, to study the virus as well as transmission process and to develop medications and vaccines against it. Also, we had to protect people from transmission by knowing how best to apply precautionary methods. However, there were some unexpected negative consequences of the pandemic and one of those the World Health Organization (WHO) called 'infodemic'. This term infodemic refers to the manipulation of a population's behavior in the assessment of information (or, more accurately, lack of assessment) related to the use of medications, particularly vaccines. Unfortunately, even with positive development in science, there was limited and often contradictory amount of information on the safety and efficacy profile of drugs and vaccines. Therefore, this made it harder for public health agencies to determine the impact of the incidence of adverse reactions and events associated with interventions such as vaccines. Hence, risk communication needs to be emphasized during any pandemic, as ignoring risk communications to different stakeholders could undermine all well-intended therapeutic interventions. Given this, it is important that the different stakeholders involved (health authorities, societies, healthcare professionals, etc.) assess the different behavioral patterns within their respective populations and propose appropriate strategies to act. Such an approach complement having risk management and communication plans for this and future pandemics. The aim of this article is to explore how information management, risk management, and risk communication during the pandemic can provide valuable lessons for the future. Plain language summary: Impact of risk communication on patient's safety during the pandemic More than 2 years have gone by since the pandemic was declared in 2019 due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Many challenges have been confronted by the healthcare system during this time to control the high impact of this disease. This pandemic, unlike others that humanity has faced, is characterized by a special feature: today, we have an enormous amount of information only a click away. This situation has been of great benefit to humanity and has allowed the development of science; nevertheless, misinformation (infodemics) has been a major problem, which has revealed the behavior of the population regarding the evaluation of information (or better, lack of assessment) related to the use of medications and particularly of vaccines. Given this, it is important that the different people involved (health authorities, societies, healthcare professionals, etc.) assess the behavior and propose appropriate strategies to act and have plans for this and future pandemics. This article intends to explore from the authors' perspective how information management, risk management, and risk communication during the pandemic can provide valuable lessons for the future.

Risk communication and community engagement as an emerging pillar of health emergency management in Iran: Achievements and the way forward.

This article is part of the Research Topic Health Systems Recovery in the Context of COVID-19 and Protracted Conflict. Risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) is an essential component of emergency preparedness and response. In Iran, RCCE is a relatively new area of public health. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran, the national task force relied on conventional methods, which is to utilize existing primary health care (PHC) structure to implement RCCE activities around the country. The PHC network and the community health volunteers embedded in it enabled the country to bridge the health system and communities from the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The RCCE strategy to respond to COVID-19 was adapted over time with the development of a national program, commonly known as the "Shahid Qassem Soleimani" project. This project consisted of six steps including case detection, laboratory testing through the establishment of sampling centers, scale up of clinical care to vulnerable groups, contact tracing, home care for vulnerable population, and COVID-19 vaccination roll out. Nearly 3 years into the pandemic, the importance of designing RCCE for all types of emergencies, allocating a dedicated team to RCCE, coordinating with different stakeholders, improving the capacity of RCCE focal points, practicing more efficient social listening, and using social insight for better planning were identified as some lessons learned. Further, Iran's RCCE experience during the COVID-19 pandemic underscores the importance of continuing to invest in the health system, particularly PHC.

Implications for COVID-19 vaccine uptake: A systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Globally, increasing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination coverage remains a major public health concern in the face of high rates of COVID-19 hesitancy among the general population. We must understand the impact of the determinants of COVID-19 vaccine uptake when designing national vaccination programmes. We aimed to synthesise nationwide evidence regarding COVID-19 infodemics and the demographic, psychological, and social predictors of COVID-19 vaccination uptake. METHODS: We systematically searched seven databases between July 2021 and March 2022 to retrieve relevant articles published since COVID-19 was first reported on 31 December 2019 in Wuhan, China. Of the 12,502 peer-reviewed articles retrieved from the databases, 57 met the selection criteria and were included in this systematic review. We explored COVID-19 vaccine uptake determinants before and after the first COVID-19 vaccine roll-out by the Food and Drug Authority (FDA). RESULTS: Increased COVID-19 vaccine uptake rates were associated with decreased hesitancy. Concerns about COVID-19 vaccine safety, negative side effects, rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccine, and uncertainty about vaccine effectiveness were associated with reluctance to be vaccinated. After the US FDA approval of COVID-19 vaccines, phobia of medical procedures such as vaccine injection and inadequate information about vaccines were the main determinants of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. CONCLUSION: Addressing effectiveness and safety concerns regarding COVID-19 vaccines, as well as providing adequate information about vaccines and the impacts of pandemics, should be considered before implementation of any vaccination programme. Reassuring people about the safety of medical vaccination and using alternative procedures such as needle-free vaccination may help further increase vaccination uptake.

Unlocking infodemics and mysteries in COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: Nexus of conspiracy beliefs, digital informational support, psychological Well-being, and religious fatalism.

Guarding against an anti-science camouflage within infodemics is paramount for sustaining the global vaccination drive. Vaccine hesitancy remains a growing concern and a significant threat to public health, especially in developing countries. Infodemics, conspiracy beliefs and religious fatalism primarily fuel vaccine hesitancy. In addition, anti-vaccine disinformation, lack of understanding, and erroneous religious beliefs also trigger vaccine hesitancy. Global behavioral strategies such as wearing face masks and long-term preventive measures (i.e., COVID-19 vaccination) have effectively limited the virus's spread. Despite the alarming rate of global deaths (i.e., over 99% being unvaccinated), a large proportion of the global population remains reluctant to vaccinate. New evidence validates the usefulness of technology-driven communication strategies (i.e., digital interventions) to address the complex socio-psychological influence of the pandemic. Hence, the present research explored the digital information processing model to assess the interface between informational support (through digital interventions) and antecedents of vaccine hesitancy. This research involved two separate studies: a focus group to operationalize the construct of infodemics, which remained ambiguous in previous literature (Study 1), followed by a cross-sectional survey (Study 2) to examine the conceptual model. Data were collected from 1906 respondents through a standard questionnaire administered online. The focus group's findings revealed a multi-dimensional nature of infodemics that was also validated in Study 2. The cross-sectional survey results substantiated infodemics, religious fatalism and conspiracy beliefs as significant predictors of vaccine hesitancy. Similarly, conspiracy beliefs negatively influence an individual's psychological well-being. Furthermore, information support (through digital intervention) affected infodemics and religious fatalism, whereas it inversely influenced the strength of their relationships with vaccine hesitancy. Information support (through digital intervention) also moderated the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and psychological well-being.

Infodemics during era of COVID-19 pandemic: A review of literature.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by the new coronavirus severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has spread across the globe and has affected the health of millions of people. During the pandemic, social media was the major source of information for isolated and anxious people. Infodemics is defined as "an overburden of information - some accurate and some not - that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy source and reliable guidance when they need it." Misinformation raised out of infodemics during COVID-19 created many serious issues regarding the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. With the help of available literature, we aimed to review the role of infodemic in relation to worsening of COVID-19 spread and vaccine utilization with possible preventable measures to control infodemic. Various social media platforms were a major source of infodemic. The active role of world agencies, narrative guidelines by the local authority, use of artificial intelligence (AI) by social media platforms and active participation of community and health care professionals can control infodemics effectively.

How Does Digital Media Search for COVID-19 Influence Vaccine Hesitancy? Exploring the Trade-off between Google Trends, Infodemics, Conspiracy Beliefs and Religious Fatalism.

Digital media has remained problematic during COVID-19 because it has been the source of false and unverified facts. This was particularly evident in the widespread misinformation and confusion regarding the COVID-19 vaccine. Past research suggested infodemics, conspiracy beliefs, and religious fatalism as potential threats to public COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. However, the literature is primarily void of empirical evidence associating demographic attributes with efforts to build vaccine hesitancy. Therefore, this research uses two studies: (Study 1) Google Trends and (Study 2) survey method to provide inclusive empirical insight into public use of digital media during COVID-19 and the detrimental effects of infodemics, conspiracy beliefs, and religious fatalism as they were related to building COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Using Google Trends based on popular keywords the public searched over one year, Study 1 explores public digital media use during COVID-19. Drawing on this exploration, Study 2 used a cross-sectional national representative survey of 2120 adult Pakistanis to describe the influence of potential hazards such as infodemics on public vaccine hesitancy. Study 2 revealed that infodemics, conspiracy beliefs, and religious fatalism predict vaccine hesitancy. In addition, gender moderates the relationship between infodemics and conspiracy beliefs and vaccine hesitancy. This implies that there is a dispositional effect of the infodemics and conspiracy beliefs spread digitally. This study's findings benefit health and other concerned authorities to help them reduce religious fatalism, vaccine hesitancy, and conspiracy theories with targeted communication campaigns on digital media.

Assessing the Role of Social Bots During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Infodemic, Disagreement, and Criticism.

BACKGROUND: Social media has changed the way we live and communicate, as well as offering unprecedented opportunities to improve many aspects of our lives, including health promotion and disease prevention. However, there is also a darker side to social media that is not always as evident as its possible benefits. In fact, social media has also opened the door to new social and health risks that are linked to health misinformation. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to study the role of social media bots during the COVID-19 outbreak. METHODS: The Twitter streaming API was used to collect tweets regarding COVID-19 during the early stages of the outbreak. The Botometer tool was then used to obtain the likelihood of whether each account is a bot or not. Bot classification and topic-modeling techniques were used to interpret the Twitter conversation. Finally, the sentiment associated with the tweets was compared depending on the source of the tweet. RESULTS: Regarding the conversation topics, there were notable differences between the different accounts. The content of nonbot accounts was associated with the evolution of the pandemic, support, and advice. On the other hand, in the case of self-declared bots, the content consisted mainly of news, such as the existence of diagnostic tests, the evolution of the pandemic, and scientific findings. Finally, in the case of bots, the content was mostly political. Above all, there was a general overriding tone of criticism and disagreement. In relation to the sentiment analysis, the main differences were associated with the tone of the conversation. In the case of self-declared bots, this tended to be neutral, whereas the conversation of normal users scored positively. In contrast, bots tended to score negatively. CONCLUSIONS: By classifying the accounts according to their likelihood of being bots and performing topic modeling, we were able to segment the Twitter conversation regarding COVID-19. Bot accounts tended to criticize the measures imposed to curb the pandemic, express disagreement with politicians, or question the veracity of the information shared on social media.

Resilience to Covid-Misinformation Among Youth in a Paternalistic Context: The Case of the UAE

This paper examines resilience to misinformation among young people in the UAE. It conceives resilience as a complex process involving individual and societal factors that allow people to overcome adversity resulting from information disorder. More specifically, the study addresses the extent to which trust in mainstream media and government institutions affects youth’s resilience against covid-19 misinformation in the UAE. It explores the complex role of the digital news literacy, along other variables affecting youth’s attitudes towards covid-19 misinformation in the country. To this end, the paper adopts a mixed method approach, using both surveys and focus groups, which provides new insights into the notion of resilience to misinformation in non-Western contexts. The paper argues that while the UAE adopted a top-down, paternalistic approach to fighting COVID-19 related misinformation, the process of resilience among youth was particularly complex. The findings revealed that this process was shaped as much by structural and societal conditions proper to the country, as by individual agency, news literacy and level of exposure to critical thinking. © 2022. American Communication Association

Risk communication and community engagement in COVID-19: Fighting infodemics among non-governmental/ community-based organizations in Africa.

As the world battles the latest strain of the coronavirus known as COVID-19 characterized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), "infodemics" - an excessive amount of (mostly untrue) information about the pandemic that makes it difficult to discern essential information - has been identified by the health body as one of the major obstacles to be tackled to win the war against the raging pandemic. In a bid to control spread of the virus, the WHO published a guideline on Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) to COVID-19, noting these responses are vital for containment. The COVID-19 pandemic is testing and stretching health systems and their ability to effectively communicate with their populations. Failure to communicate accurate public health facts could lead to losses of trust, reputation, economy, and lives. This paper turns its searchlight on nongovernmental and community-based organizations (NGOs and CBOs) in Africa, and how they handle infodemics in an information environment battling not just a health pandemic, but a hoax pandemic too. Methods: The study employed mixed method, with data drawn from Africanbased NGOs and CBOs via online questionnaire and interviews against the backdrop of the Situational Theory of Publics. Findings reveal, based on what NGO/CBO survey respondents report their local clients think, that many at the grassroots still do not believe COVID-19 is real, while others view it as government's scheme to embezzle funds. NGO/CBOs therefore look to WHO and Health Ministries for accurate information. It concludes that RCCE with the public and atrisk populations help reduce confusion and builds trust in the public health guidance community members can take thereby restricting the disease spread as an outcome of the RCCE approach.

Impact of Social Media Infodemics on Mental Health among Health Colleges’ Students at Saudi Universities during COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: Saudi Arabia has been severely affected by COVID-19 since March 2020. The COVID-19 “infodemic” has spread a plethora of misinformation on social media leading to public panic and serious public health consequences. We aimed to investigate the impact of social media infodemics on mental health status among health colleges’ students, as future healthcare workers, at Saudi universities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: We used a cross-sectional web-based survey to collect data from 400 health colleges’ students. We assessed average time spent on social media and used the shortened Pittsburgh sleep quality index, generalized anxiety disorder scale, and Center for Epidemiology scale for depression to measure sleep quality, generalized anxiety disorder, and depressive symptoms. Generalized linear regression was used to determine associations with mental health burdens. Results: About 21.5% reported more than 3 hours/day of exposure to social media. Prevalence of poor sleep quality, anxiety, and depression disorders was 16%, 31%, and 24%, respectively. No significant difference was determined between males and females (P>0.05);however, a significant association was detected with time spent on social media (P<0.001). Conclusion: We found a significant mental health burden among health colleges’ students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Spending too much time on social media is a potential risk factor. Controlling social media infodemics, early mental health interventions, and continuous monitoring of consequences should become routine as part of preparedness efforts. © 2022 Nour et al.

Charting the Information and Misinformation Landscape to Characterize Misinfodemics on Social Media: COVID-19 Infodemiology Study at a Planetary Scale.

BACKGROUND: The novel coronavirus, also known as SARS-CoV-2, has come to define much of our lives since the beginning of 2020. During this time, countries around the world imposed lockdowns and social distancing measures. The physical movements of people ground to a halt, while their online interactions increased as they turned to engaging with each other virtually. As the means of communication shifted online, information consumption also shifted online. Governing authorities and health agencies have intentionally shifted their focus to use social media and online platforms to spread factual and timely information. However, this has also opened the gate for misinformation, contributing to and accelerating the phenomenon of misinfodemics. OBJECTIVE: We carried out an analysis of Twitter discourse on over 1 billion tweets related to COVID-19 over a year to identify and investigate prevalent misinformation narratives and trends. We also aimed to describe the Twitter audience that is more susceptible to health-related misinformation and the network mechanisms driving misinfodemics. METHODS: We leveraged a data set that we collected and made public, which contained over 1 billion tweets related to COVID-19 between January 2020 and April 2021. We created a subset of this larger data set by isolating tweets that included URLs with domains that had been identified by Media Bias/Fact Check as being prone to questionable and misinformation content. By leveraging clustering and topic modeling techniques, we identified major narratives, including health misinformation and conspiracies, which were present within this subset of tweets. RESULTS: Our focus was on a subset of 12,689,165 tweets that we determined were representative of COVID-19 misinformation narratives in our full data set. When analyzing tweets that shared content from domains known to be questionable or that promoted misinformation, we found that a few key misinformation narratives emerged about hydroxychloroquine and alternative medicines, US officials and governing agencies, and COVID-19 prevention measures. We further analyzed the misinformation retweet network and found that users who shared both questionable and conspiracy-related content were clustered more closely in the network than others, supporting the hypothesis that echo chambers can contribute to the spread of health misinfodemics. CONCLUSIONS: We presented a summary and analysis of the major misinformation discourse surrounding COVID-19 and those who promoted and engaged with it. While misinformation is not limited to social media platforms, we hope that our insights, particularly pertaining to health-related emergencies, will help pave the way for computational infodemiology to inform health surveillance and interventions.

Assessing Public Opinion Regarding COVID-19 Vaccinations in Pakistan: Knowledge, and Perceptions of General Public

The COVID-19 infodemic can be counteracted by clear and consistent communication of scientific evidence and improved health literacy between the public and informants. For complete eradication of COVID-19, several vaccines are approved in various countries for public use by regulatory authorities. Assessing public perception regarding COVID-19 vaccination is an important area of research. In the current study, we aim to evaluate the opinions of individuals from multiple localities about COVID-19 and its vaccination through an online survey. Participants of the study were divided into different groups based on age, profession, demography, and income, and their opinions were calculated in percentage. In age group analysis we reported the highest willingness, 62.8 % (n=22) in age group 30-40, followed by 60 % (n=3) in age group >50, 58.6 % (n=244) in age group 20-30, 57.95 % (n=51) was in age group 15-20 and the least willingness, 33.33 % (n=4) in age group 40-50. The highest disagreement regarding vaccination of 60 % was found in age group >50, followed by 33.3 % in the age group 40-50, 14.7 % in the age group 20-30, 11.4 % in the age group 15-20 and 30-40. Similarly based on profession, maximum acceptability, 59.1 % (n=262) was reported in students, followed by a businessman (68.7 %, n=11), professional workers (3.5 %, n=20). Likewise, in demographic analysis, individuals from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) (61.3 %, n=200) were found more enthusiastic for vaccination, followed by AJK (58.33 %, n=7) and Islamabad (58.1 %, n=32). In the same way, people with income range $435-$621/month showed the highest willingness (65.7 %, n=69) regarding vaccination, followed by income group ($621 or more $s/month). Surprisingly, individuals from the low-income group were found more interested in vaccination as compared to the higher-income group. Comparatively low interest of high-income group individuals may be due to more exposure to conspiracy theories shared on social media. © Pakistan Academy of Sciences.

Emotional Analysis of Twitter Posts During the First Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Greece: Infoveillance Study.

BACKGROUND: The effectiveness of public health measures depends upon a community's compliance as well as on its positive or negative emotions. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to perform an analysis of the expressed emotions in English tweets by Greek Twitter users during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Greece. METHODS: The period of this study was from January 25, 2020 to June 30, 2020. Data collection was performed by using appropriate search words with the filter-streaming application programming interface of Twitter. The emotional analysis of the tweets that satisfied the inclusion criteria was achieved using a deep learning approach that performs better by utilizing recurrent neural networks on sequences of characters. Emotional epidemiology tools such as the 6 basic emotions, that is, joy, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, and anger based on the Paul Ekman classification were adopted. RESULTS: The most frequent emotion that was detected in the tweets was "surprise" at the emerging contagion, while the imposed isolation resulted mostly in "anger" (odds ratio 2.108, 95% CI 0.986-4.506). Although the Greeks felt rather safe during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, their positive and negative emotions reflected a masked "flight or fight" or "fear versus anger" response to the contagion. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of our study show that emotional analysis emerges as a valid tool for epidemiology evaluations, design, and public health strategy and surveillance.

Social media infodemics and social distancing under the COVID-19 pandemic: public good provisions under uncertainty.

This debate examines the impact of infodemics - an over-abundance of information - on social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of its external effects, social distancing behavior (SDB) shares fundamental properties with public goods, whose potential for undersupply has been examined extensively in the social sciences. Although the negative effects of infodemics have been emphasized by governments and international organizations, theoretical models suggest that infodemics may work as a mitigation mechanism. That is, infodemics may enhance people's SDBs. Based on original survey data, we show that media exposure can positively increase SDB. We conclude by discussing two public health implications. First, the media plays an important role in motivating SDB. Second, even if infodemics can increase SDB, we must be wary of their ability to pose other, non-negligible dangers.

The Pandemic, Infodemic, and People's Resilience in India: Viewpoint.

The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has caused widespread fear and stress. The pandemic has affected everyone, everywhere, and created systemic inequities, leaving no one behind. In India alone, more than 34,094,373 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 452,454 related deaths have been reported as of October 19, 2021. Around May 2021, the daily number of new COVID-19 cases crossed the 400,000 mark, seriously hampering the health care system. Despite the devastating situation, the public response was seen through their efforts to come forward with innovative ideas for potential ways to combat the pandemic, for instance, dealing with the shortage of oxygen cylinders and hospital bed availability. With increasing COVID-19 vaccination rates since September 2021, along with the diminishing number of daily new cases, the country is conducting preventive and preparatory measures for the third wave. In this article, we propose the pivotal role of public participation and digital solutions to re-establish our society and describe how Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can support eHealth initiatives and mitigate infodemics to tackle a postpandemic situation. This viewpoint reflects that the COVID-19 pandemic has featured a need to bring together research findings across disciplines, build greater coherence within the field, and be a driving force for multi-sectoral, cross-disciplinary collaboration. The article also highlights the various needs to develop digital solutions that can be applied to pandemic situations and be reprocessed to focus on other SDGs. Promoting the use of digital health care solutions to implement preventive measures can be enhanced by public empowerment and engagement. Wearable technologies can be efficiently used for remote monitoring or home-based care for patients with chronic conditions. Furthermore, the development and implementation of informational tools can aid the improvement of well-being and dissolve panic-ridden behaviors contributing toward infodemics. Thus, a call to action for an observatory of digital health initiatives on COVID-19 is required to share the main conclusions and lessons learned in terms of resilience, crisis mitigation, and preparedness.

Understanding the dynamics emerging from infodemics: a call to action for interdisciplinary research.

Research on infodemics, i.e., the rapid spread of (mis)information related to a hazardous event, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, requires integrating a multiplicity of scientific disciplines. The dynamics emerging from infodemics have the potential to generate complex behavioral patterns. To react appropriately, it is of ultimate importance for the fields of Business and Economics to understand these dynamics. In the short run, they might lead to an adaptation in household spending or to a shift in buying behavior towards online providers. In the long run, changes in investments, consumer behavior, and markets are to be expected. We argue that the dynamics emerge from complex interactions among multiple factors, such as information and misinformation accessible to individuals and the formation and revision of beliefs. (Mis)information accessible to individuals is, amongst others, affected by algorithms specifically designed to provide personalized information, while automated fact-checking algorithms can help reduce the amount of circulating misinformation. The formation and revision of individual (and probably false) beliefs and individual fact-checking and interpretation of information are heavily affected by linguistic patterns inherent to information during pandemics and infodemics and further factors, such as affect, intuition, and motives. We argue that, to get a deep(er) understanding of the dynamics emerging from infodemics, the fields of Business and Economics should integrate the perspectives of Computer Science and Information Systems, (Computational) Linguistics, and Cognitive Science into the wider context of economic systems (e.g., organizations, markets or industries) and propose a way to do so. As research on infodemics is a strongly interdisciplinary field and the integration of the above-mentioned disciplines is a first step towards a holistic approach, we conclude with a call to action which should encourage researchers to collaborate across scientific disciplines and unfold collective creativity, which will substantially advance research on infodemics.

COVID-19 home remedies and myths becoming a hazardous health infodemic?

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) brought on several social, economic, political, and environmental challenges. What was mostly questioned was the efficacy of the Disaster Management Act 57 of 2002 (As Amended 16 of 2015) (DMA), which was used to declare COVID-19 a disaster. The concern was whether the DMA is able to deal with pandemics when its focus is mostly on climate-related disasters. Most public health emergencies experience the spread of overwhelming information, some of which may be true and others may be false information. This article discusses the home remedies and myths related to COVID-19, that could impede pandemic response efforts. Subsequently, this study raises a question regarding the effectiveness of DMA to deal with such types of compounding risks. In doing so, this research is exploratory where the DMA and the media articles on COVID-19 home remedies and myths are systematically reviewed. Coronavirus disease 2019 home remedies and myths were found to be hazardous and the DMA was found unprepared to deal with such types of compounding risks. 'Infodemic management' needs to be considered in the DMA in order to prepare for effective disaster response.

The Impact of the Online COVID-19 Infodemic on French Red Cross Actors' Field Engagement and Protective Behaviors: Mixed Methods Study.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has been widely described as an infodemic, an excess of rapidly circulating information in social and traditional media in which some information may be erroneous, contradictory, or inaccurate. One key theme cutting across many infodemic analyses is that it stymies users' capacities to identify appropriate information and guidelines, encourages them to take inappropriate or even harmful actions, and should be managed through multiple transdisciplinary approaches. Yet, investigations demonstrating how the COVID-19 information ecosystem influences complex public decision making and behavior offline are relatively few. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate whether information reported through the social media channel Twitter, linked articles and websites, and selected traditional media affected the risk perception, engagement in field activities, and protective behaviors of French Red Cross (FRC) volunteers and health workers in the Paris region of France from June to October 2020. METHODS: We used a hybrid approach that blended online and offline data. We tracked daily Twitter discussions and selected traditional media in France for 7 months, qualitatively evaluating COVID-19 claims and debates about nonpharmaceutical protective measures. We conducted 24 semistructured interviews with FRC workers and volunteers. RESULTS: Social and traditional media debates about viral risks and nonpharmaceutical interventions fanned anxieties among FRC volunteers and workers. Decisions to continue conducting FRC field activities and daily protective practices were also influenced by other factors unrelated to the infodemic: familial and social obligations, gender expectations, financial pressures, FRC rules and communications, state regulations, and relationships with coworkers. Some respondents developed strategies for "tuning out" social and traditional media. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the information ecosystem may be just one among multiple influences on one group's offline perceptions and behavior. Measures to address users who have disengaged from online sources of health information and who rely on social relationships to obtain information are needed. Tuning out can potentially lead to less informed decision making, leading to worse health outcomes.