No Rumour Health project

The No Rumour Health project is an Erasmus+ initiative in which three European countries (Spain, Greece and Poland) collaborate to end misinformation and give tools to the elderly against medical fake news.
Its main objective is to design a mobile application for older people that helps them identify health hoaxes shared through social networks. The main target group of this app is an audience over 65 years old, as these people are the ones who have later entered the Internet era.
Another of the main objectives of the No Rumour Health project is the creation of four open educational modules. These online modules will provide training on the most common health myths, as well as on different strategies to detect possible hoaxes and how to deal with undecided health information. This tool will prevent the consolidation of misleading medical information and improve the health education of European citizens.
Fake or manipulated information is an increasingly prominent phenomenon in the post-truth era, due to the possibilities offered by the Internet. All areas of knowledge are affected by the lack of information and prejudices, with a particular emphasis on the medical field. One of the main concerns of the scientific and medical community is to avoid misleading information, however, discrediting misinformation is a complex challenge.

NEWS

HOAXES SHARED VIA WHATSAPP RELATED TO COVID-19

One out of every five hoaxes shared via WhatsApp related to COVID-19, deals with the prevention and cure of the disease usingnatural origin products.

This has been confirmed by a research published by ScienceFlows’ team in the Spanish scientific journal called Gaceta Sanitaria. This research analysed Whatsapp scams received during the pandemic in Spain.

To do so, the ScienceFlows research team activated a phone number so that citizens could voluntarily send the scams that they received. Thanks to this, they were able to understand the different characteristics of these hoaxes.
Recommendations:
Among the results of the study, more than half of the hoaxes (58.9%) recommend consuming substances of natural origin, such as water with lemon juice and ginger. In contrast, 32.1% recommend the consumption of substances of synthetic origin such as pharmacological drugs.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an unprecedented spread of false information. The implementation of certain recommendations that are spread by instant messaging, such as the use of some natural remedies to prevent and cure the coronavirus, could lead to an exponential increase in the saturation of the health system.

PEOPLE OVER 65 SHARE 7 TIMES MORE FAKE NEWS THAN YOUNG PEOPLE

People over 65 share up to 7 times more fake news than younger generations. This has been confirmed by a research published in Science journal, that analysed the behaviour of US population on Facebook during the 2016 presidential elections. This research showed that the probability of a person sharing fake news is related to the age gap rather than to the educational level.
Another major reason why the dissemination of fake news tends to be done by people over 60 years old, is their confidence in the accuracy of the news they receive.

In some ways, the lack of digital education makes it more difficult for them to distinguish facts and opinions if we compare it to the ability that young people tend to have in this sense.
In addition to age, another important factor is related to political affiliationand the need to reinforce our beliefs. In general, we tend to share news that we think that are possible, and we generally consider that news that fit our ideology are truthful.
For example, in the US, Republicans share more fake news than Democrats, and their proportion of false news dissemination is similar to the 'independents'.

NoRumourHealth is a project funded by the European Commission under Erasmus+ programme 2019-1-ES01-KA204-064037

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