Practical Playbook for Addressing Health Misinformation

"Looking out for and responding to misinformation can take a lot of time, dedication, and skill....Connecting with communities and building partnerships before public health issues escalate is important groundwork."

Misleading rumours, misinformation, and disinformation can make health events more complicated, reduce trust in public health efforts, and lead to negative health impacts. From the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, this playbook for addressing health misinformation provides guidance on ways public health and medical professionals can prepare for health-related rumours, decide when to act to address misinformation, choose which actions and approaches might be useful to their audiences and information needs, develop messages to address misinformation, and gather feedback about those messages. It also provides detailed tools, checklists, templates, and examples written in plain language to help in these efforts.



The playbook takes a hands-on approach to help public health practitioners, medical professionals, and health communicators recognise and respond to health-related rumors and misinformation. The playbook's guidance is organised into stages:

1. Prework: Actions to take before rumours arise
   • Identify things you can do before rumours come up.
   • Put together a team you can call on when you need to address a rumour.
   • Connect with communities and build partnerships.
   • Get to know your audience.
   • Set up a way to identify misinformation.
   • Answer your audiences' questions and concerns quickly.
2. Step 1: Decide whether to address the rumour
   • Identify your goal for responding to a rumour.
   • Identify what influences your decision to respond.
   • Decide whether you will address the rumour ("Sometimes, not taking action is the best decision.")
3. Step 2: Take action to address misinformation
   • Identify the kind of misinformation that is spreading.
   • Characterise your priority audience and your communication goals for them.
   • Choose an action approach.
   • Select communications channels and trusted messengers.
   • Choose strategic ways to frame your messages.
   • Create and disseminate your messages using good practices.
   • Even if you can't act, address misinformation in other ways.
4. Step 3: Evaluate anti-misinformation messages
   • Gather feedback about your messages.

Appendices include: Checklist to Improve Trust; Audience Persona Characterization Tool; Message Development Worksheet; Appendix D: Message Framing Strategies and Templates; Appendix E: Developing Messages Using LLMs [Large Language Models], and List of Tools.

The publication was supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the US Department of Health and Human Services.