Discover how to make sense of the health and wellness information vying for our attention — and avoid being misled.

News literacy topics

Advertisements; Bias; Conspiratorial thinking; Evaluating evidence; Fact-checking and verification; Misinformation; Science and data reporting; Social media

Learning objectives

• I can evaluate health and wellness information.
• I can explain why people are vulnerable to health misinformation.
• I can list key characteristics of quality health information.
• I can describe common red flags to watch out for when encountering health misinformation.

Essential questions

• When can you trust health and wellness information?
• Why are we vulnerable to health misinformation?
• What are some characteristics of quality health information?
• What are some common patterns of faulty health information?
• How can we combat health misinformation?

Excerpt

“Finding information we can trust about our health can be tough. We’re living during an incredible time in human history. Modern medicine has made huge strides. It’s hard to imagine life before antibiotics, or vaccines. We’re also living in an age of information abundance. It’s always at our fingertips and being pushed across our feeds. That means there are lots of competing voices and sources.

Hi, my name is Dr. Melissa Clarke. Please call me Dr. Mel. I’m the former assistant dean of the Howard University College of Medicine. And today, I’m addressing you from the gallery at the Louis Stokes Health Sciences Library at Howard University. This is one of my favorite spaces on the campus. I’m also an emergency medicine physician, and now I’m CEO of the Be Health Empowered Group, where we’re dedicated to ensuring everyone understands accurate health facts that are needed to make wise health decisions.”