Trust, hesitancy and misinformation
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This branch covers communicating health information where trust is uncertain or false claims compete with evidence, divided by the problem and response: misinformation’s spread, institutional and industry trust, corrective content, vaccine hesitancy, public advocacy and sustained channels. It leaves risk presentation to risk communication, general behaviour change to writing to move readers to act, publication-integrity disputes to publications, AI-specific trust to artificial intelligence, and health disparities to equity and bias.
- Why health misinformation outruns the facts — beliefs, emotion, networks, organised campaigns and institutional distrust
- Keeping public trust in public health and regulatory communication — explanations, accountability, communication programmes and institutional responses
- Writing where the pharmaceutical industry is distrusted — criticism, commercial interests, regulation, conspiracy narratives and accessible evidence
- Writing content that corrects health misinformation — accuracy, fact-checking’s limits, usable explanations and discoverability
- Writing for a vaccine-hesitant reader — concerns, listening, targeted messages, stories and the limits of a correction
- Speaking up against health misinformation — professional responsibility, public engagement, media appearances and personal exposure
- Running a science channel or a fact-checking team — platforms, staffing, trusted messengers, campaign assessment and checking workflows