1 in 10 people have been harmed by health misinformation. Our new short film highlights this important issue. It was produced with Ipsos. Key topics include:

• Access to health information in the UK.
• The rise of misinformation.
• The impact of misinformation.
• Solutions – including the PIF TICK.

Video transcript

Dr Rebecca West, Ipsos  00:13

There’s a real need for health information. We saw that one in five people with chronic conditions hadn’t received any information about their condition since diagnosis.

Dr Stephanie Baker, City University London  00:22

We’ve always had people who have had an interest in sharing false and misleading health remedies. But what is new people who achieve fame online, especially because of social media.

Roxy, Patient  00:39

I kind of experienced symptoms and pain with my reproductive health for quite some time. The level of dismissal was quite extreme from a particular doctor. At one point, I got told I was probably just gonna have to live with the pain. In terms of misinformation, it’s been a long journey for myself. I’ve had to really do a lot of my own research. It’s becoming increasingly hard to decipher.

Trishna Bharadia, Patient Advocate  01:02

There has been a rollback in terms of the checks, the balances, the verification of information that is out there on for instance social media. So much out there is misinformed.

Roxy, Patient  01:13

Younger people particularly, they have grown up now with AI playing a big part in their lives, and also social media as well. Not everyone can decipher what’s accurate, what’s legitimate. Obviously people are trying to sell things to you a lot of the time.

Richard Simcock, Macmillan Cancer Support  01:27

If a person chooses to believe that HPV vaccination will harm her children, that may lead to those children being more vulnerable to cervical, throat or anal cancer in later life. Those beliefs can escalate to the point that people don’t seek the appropriate medical care or decline evidence-based high quality medical care.

Trishna Bharadia, Patient Advocate  01:48

We need to do a lot more around helping people to be able to identify misinformation. I think something like the PIF TICK will help people to identify that this is information that can be trusted.

Dr Rebecca West, Ipsos  02:02

That’s where you know, PIF comes in. Having an independent organisation that can verify this is a good source of information. We’ve checked it, we can verify it so that people can feel confidence in the information that they’re accessing.

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