RAPID: Quantifying the Downstream Effects of COVID-19 Online Health Information on Risk Perceptions, Decision Making, Policy Preferences, and Preventive Health Behaviors

2019年新型冠状病毒（COVID-19）大流行可能是一个多世纪以来最有害的全球传染病疫情，并伴随着严重的经济、社会和政治混乱。与大流行的迅速发展相匹配的是，关于COVID-19的虚假或误导性在线健康信息的“信息大流行”难以应对。尽管学者们已经研究了网络信息的真实性、对虚假或误导性网络信息的易感性及其对信念的影响，但关于信息大流行的下游后果，仍有很多需要了解的地方。广泛传播的谎言可能会影响决策、态度和行为，尤其是在一段较长的时间内和在实验室之外。这种基本知识的缺乏阻碍了我们量化虚假或误导性在线公共卫生信息的潜在危害，以及确定减轻其有害影响的因素和干预措施的能力。对大流行前所未有的不确定性、焦虑和恐惧，网上可获得的大量关于COVID-19的健康信息，以及对虚假或误导性信息的长期影响缺乏了解，迫切需要研究在线信息如何影响美国人对大流行的风险认知和决策。主要论点是，随着时间的推移，对有关COVID-19的虚假或误导性在线健康信息的接触和认可会加剧在COVID-19风险认知、政策偏好和行为方面已有的文化鸿沟。以前的研究已经研究了文化世界观和在线信息如何与传染病爆发中的信仰、情绪和行为联系起来，但该研究并没有在很长一段时间内进行研究，也没有关注虚假或误导性健康信息的作用。该项目通过整合风险、信念变化和决策的心理学和传播学理论来衡量一段时间内虚假或误导性在线健康信息暴露对风险认知和行为的影响，从而缩小了这一科学差距。这项研究将社交参与数据（例如，在社交媒体上的点赞、分享）、内容分析、调查研究、在线实验和在7个月的研究期间收集的网络跟踪数据进行了创新整合。在2019冠状病毒病背景下，该项目提供了一个罕见而重要的机会，可以评估在线信息对不断演变的卫生危机的影响，而不是回顾性地评估，同时对虚假或误导性在线信息可能损害个人和社会的过程产生新的科学见解。此外，COVID-19大流行可能会持续一段时间，未来可能会爆发新型病毒。因此，虚假或误导性在线健康信息的问题及其对公共卫生的影响促使行业、政府和社区行为体需要采取更有效的基于证据的缓解做法。该项目提供了必要的指导，为有效的风险沟通提供了最佳实践，加强了对虚假和误导性在线信息的抵制，并减少了阻碍风险背景下决策的文化鸿沟。该项目还产生了一组可供公开使用的丰富数据，并通过同行评议的期刊文章分享了结果，这些文章详细说明了主要发现和风险沟通实践的含义。在西北大学传播与公共政策中心的协调下，通过媒体采访、大学宣传、the Conversation和Washington Post等媒体平台上的文章、白皮书和社区讲座等方式向公众传播项目的见解和成果。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is potentially the most harmful global infectious disease outbreak in more than a century, and is accompanied by severe economic, social, and political disruptions. The rapid progression of the pandemic has been matched with an “infodemic” of false or misleading online health information about COVID-19 that has been difficult to combat. Although scholars have examined the veracity of online information, susceptibility to false or misleading online information, and its influence on beliefs, there remains a great deal to learn about the infodemic’s downstream consequences. Widely shared falsehoods are likely to affect decision making, attitudes, and behavior, especially over an extended period and outside of the laboratory. This lack of basic knowledge hampers our ability to quantify potential harms of false or misleading online information on public health, and to identify factors and interventions that mitigate its harmful influence. Unprecedented uncertainty, anxiety, and fear about the pandemic, the enormous amount of health information about COVID-19 available online, and a lack of understanding about the long-term impacts of false or misleading information create a pressing need for an examination of how online information influences Americans’ risk perceptions and decision making about the pandemic. The overarching argument is for a reinforcing spiral over time in which exposure to, and endorsement of, false or misleading online health information about COVID-19 amplifies pre-existing cultural divides in COVID-19 risk perceptions, policy preferences, and behaviors. Previous research has examined how cultural worldviews and online information relates to beliefs, emotions, and behaviors in infectious disease outbreaks, but that research has not done so over an extended period, and it has not focused on the role of false or misleading health information. This project closes this scientific gap by integrating psychological and communication theories of risk, belief change, and decision making to measure the influence of false or misleading online health information exposure on risk perceptions and behavior over a time period. The research involves an innovative integration of social engagement data (e.g., likes, shares on social media), content analysis, survey research, online experiments, and web-tracking data collected over a 7 month study period. In the COVID-19 context, this project presents a rare and important opportunity to assess the impacts of online information about an evolving health crisis as it unfolds, rather than retrospectively, while generating new scientific insights about processes by which false or misleading online information can harm individuals and society. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic may last for some time, and future novel virus outbreaks are likely. As a result, the problem of false or misleading online health information and its impact on public health drives the need for more effective evidence-based mitigation practices by industry, government, and community actors. This project generates essential guidance, offering best practices for effective risk communication, strengthening resistance to false and misleading online information, and reducing cultural divides that hamper decision making in the context of risk. The project also produces a rich set of data that is publicly available, and results are shared through peer-reviewed journal articles detailing major findings and implications for risk communication practice. Coordinated by the Center for Communication and Public Policy at Northwestern University, the insights and results generated by this project are disseminated to the public through media interviews, university publicity, essays on media platforms such as The Conversation and the Washington Post, white papers, and community talks.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.