The dangers of misinformation and neglecting linguistic minorities during a pandemic | Research and Innovation (europa.eu)
<https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/dangers...
Grappling with health misinformation in thousands of languages
https://epi-win.cmail19.com/t/d-e-zidkijd-thjrjljddi-dl/
"Linguistic and cultural diversity during the pandemic required more health guidance, more communication, and more outreach in more languages than ever before. "Meeting this linguistic diversity with accurate, credible health information timely before misinformation filled these voids was a major challenge <https://epi-win.cmail19.com/t/d-l-zidkijd-thjrjljddi-y/>. "Infodemic managers have to bridge this gap between what health information is available, when and in what languages, and the communities that may have different language requirements. These are challenges that the Translators Without Borders talked about already since the 2014-16 ebola outbreak in West Africa. Their current recommendations in the time of COVID-19 <https://epi-win.cmail19.com/t/d-l-zidkijd-thjrjljddi-j/> were published at the beginning of the pandemic, but they still resonate today:
"- Communicating in more languages than the nationally recognized languages can help reach otherwise marginalized people
- Choose information format wisely because it affects how it’s understood
- Clearly address people’s questions and concerns so that misinformation doesn’t take root
- Build trusted communication through locally-preferred two-way information flows
- By doing the above, governments can have a more effective emergency response.
"Infodemic managers can help support a more multilingual approach to infodemic management by including people of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds in infodemic management teams, asking for feedback from native speakers on draft products, encouraging minority communities to report circulating misinformation, and building community resilience to misinformation*
HIFA profile: Richard Fitton is a retired family doctor - GP. Professional interests: Health literacy, patient partnership of trust and implementation of healthcare with professionals, family and public involvement in the prevention of modern lifestyle diseases, patients using access to professional records to overcome confidentiality barriers to care, patients as part of the policing of the use of their patient data Email address: richardpeterfitton7 AT gmail.com
