Refuting misinformation: Examining theoretical underpinnings of refutational interventions.

With the proliferation of misinformation have come toolkits that include refutation strategies to target the beliefs of individuals that can be employed preemptively (prebunking) or reactively (debunking). Whereas the theoretical lineage of prebunking is well established within the literature on inoculation theory, the theoretical underpinning of debunking is not. Recent advances in inoculation theory include fostering resistance to a type of message rather than to the content of a message as well as application of messages in both prophylactic and therapeutic situations. Theoretically rooted within studies of conceptual change, fresh insights on debunking interventions derive from knowledge revision models, the Misinformation Receptivity Framework, as well as empirical evidence on the efficacy of narrative correctives and counters.

Extending Communication Campaign from Health to Peacebuilding: A Locally Driven Communication Campaign Approach as Part of A Peacebuilding Initiative in Liberia.

A vast amount of literature exists on communication campaign design, implementation, and evaluation, especially in health contexts. Despite recent calls to center the role of local citizens in designing and implementing campaign initiatives, limited literature exists on how to integrate local expertise with the expertise of those external to the local context. Drawing on health communication campaigns literature, peacebuilding literature, and our experiences collaborating on a multi-year communication campaign for peacebuilding and health promotion in Liberia, West Africa, we advance a locally driven communication campaign approach that integrates expertise of local citizens, campaign researchers, and campaign practitioners. We make a critical linkage between health communication and peacebuilding to discuss implications about how a locally driven communication campaign approach can contribute to communication campaigns in general, as well as health and peacebuilding specifically.

Understanding and Diagnosing Antimicrobial Resistance on Social Media: A Yearlong Overview of Data and Analytics.

To better understand user conversations revolving around antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) on Twitter, we used an online data collection and analysis toolkit with full firehose access to collect corpuses of tweets with "antibiotic" and "antimicrobial resistance" keyword tracks. The date range included tweets from November 28, 2015, to November 25, 2016, for both datasets. This yearlong date range provides insight into how users have discussed antibiotics and AMR and identifies any spikes in activity during a particular time frame. Overall, we found that discussions about antibiotics and AMR predominantly occur in the United States and the United Kingdom, with roughly equal gender participation. These conversations are influenced by news sources, health professionals, and governmental health organizations. Users will often defer to retweet and recirculate content posted from these official sources and link to external articles instead of posting their own musings on the subjects. Our findings are important benchmarks in understanding the prevalence and reach of potential misinformation about antibiotics and AMR on Twitter.

Poison or Prevention? Understanding the Linkages between Vaccine-Negative Individuals' Knowledge Deficiency, Motivations, and Active Communication Behaviors.

The last few decades have seen growing concerns among parents regarding the safety of childhood vaccines, arguably leading to the rise of the anti-vaccine movement. This study is an effort to understand situational and cross-situational factors that influence individuals' negative attitudes toward vaccines, referred to as vaccine negativity. In doing so, this study elucidated how situational and cross-situational factors influence vaccine negativity. Specifically, this study tested how knowledge deficiency, or acceptance of scientifically inaccurate data about vaccines, and institutional trust influenced negative attitudes toward vaccines. Using the situational theory of problem solving as the theoretical framework, this study also identified and tested a knowledge-attitude-motivation-behavior framework of vaccine negative individuals' cognitions and behaviors about the issue.

Justificatory Information Forefending in Digital Age: Self-Sealing Informational Conviction of Risky Health Behavior.

This study proposes the idea of justificatory information forefending, a cognitive process by which individuals accept information that confirms their preexisting health beliefs, and reject information that is dissonant with their attitudes. In light of the sheer volume of often contradictory information related to health that is frequently highlighted by the traditional media, this study sought to identify antecedents and outcomes of this justificatory information forefending. Results indicate that individuals who are exposed to contradictory health information, currently engage in risky health behavior, are comfortable using the Internet to search for information, and are currently taking steps to maintain their health are likely to actively select health information that confirms their preexisting notions about their health, and to reject information that is contradictory to their beliefs. Additionally, individuals who engage in justificatory information forefending were also found to continue to engage in risky health behavior. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.