How denialist amplification spread COVID misinformation and undermined the credibility of public health science

• Published in: Journal of public health policy Vol. 45; no. 1; pp. 114 - 125
• Main Author: Morris, Robert D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Palgrave Macmillan UK 01.03.2024; Palgrave Macmillan
• Subjects: Amplification; Bibliometrics; COVID-19 vaccines; Denialism; Equality and Human Rights; False information; Fatalities; Health care policy; Health policy; Informetrics; Mass media; Medical Sociology; Misinformation; Pandemics; Public Health; Public opinion; Public policy; Science; Scientific community; Scientists; Social Justice; Social media; Social networks; Social Policy; Social Sciences; Sociology; Threats; Viewpoint; COVID; Misinformation; Science communication; Denialist amplification; Social media
• ISSN: 0197-5897; 1745-655X; 1745-655X
• DOI: 10.1057/s41271-023-00451-4

Denialist scientists played an outsized role in shaping public opinion and determining public health policy during the recent COVID pandemic. From early on, amplification of researchers who denied the threat of COVID shaped public opinion and undermined public health policy. The forces that amplify denialists include (1) Motivated amplifiers seeking to protect their own interests by supporting denialist scientists, (2) Conventional media outlets giving disproportionate time to denialist opinions, (3) Promoters of controversy seeking to gain traction in an ‘attention economy,’ and (4) Social media creating information silos in which denialists can become the dominant voice. Denialist amplification poses an existential threat to science relevant to public policy. It is incumbent on the scientific community to create a forum to accurately capture the collective perspective of the scientific community related to public health policy that is open to dissenting voices but prevents artificial amplification of denialists.