The Internet and Social Media as Sources of Health Information
A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Global Health".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2021) | Viewed by 3358
Special Issue Editors
Interests: strategies to increase vaccination coverage; infodemiology; vaccines; prevention and control of infections; prevent covid-19
Interests: infodemiology; health information; misinformation; internet; YouTube; vaccines; prevention and control of infections; influenza; COVID-19
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
We are organizing a Special Issue entitled: “The Internet and Social Media as Sources of Health Information” in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. The venue is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes articles and communications in the interdisciplinary area of environmental health sciences and public health. For detailed information on the journal, we refer you to https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph.
The Internet and social media are a large source of health information and have the capacity to influence their users. However, the information found online often lacks scientific rigor, as anyone may upload content. This factor is a cause of great concern to scientific societies, governments, and users.
Among others, misinformation hampers public health responses to epidemics and can result in people taking fewer measures to prevent disease transmission effectively. In particular, the World Health Organization explains that infodemics are an excessive amount of information about a problem, which makes it difficult to identify a solution. Infodemics can hamper an effective public health response and create confusion and distrust among people.
The dynamics of the spread of misinformation are complex, probably multifaceted and poorly understood. Patterns of misinformation spread and the characteristics of networks at the macro level indicate that both individuals and communities are vulnerable to misinformation.
Therefore, the aim of this Special Issue is to address and investigate this problem by assessing, among others:
- effectiveness of strategies to control infodemics
- impact of online health information (and misinformation) on users
- countries responses to mitigate misinformation
- factors associated with health information (and misinformation) and what measures can be implemented to control it
- methods aiming to manage infodemics
This Special Issue is aimed at scholars and researchers involved in different research areas, from medical informatics to medicine, confirming the interdisciplinary character of the journal.
Dr. Ignacio Hernández-García
Dr. Teresa Giménez-Júlvez
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- infodemiology
- health information
- infodemics
- misinformation
- internet
- social media
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