Descrizione del progetto
Un metodo interdisciplinare per gestire l’infodemia
La pandemia di COVID-19 ha provocato una diffusa resistenza alle misure essenziali per garantire la salute pubblica, alimentata da disinformazioni provenienti da varie fonti. Questa epidemia di informazioni, nota con il termine di infodemia e guidata da influencer, politici e diversi promotori di falsità online, rappresenta una grave minaccia per la sanità pubblica e determina un aumento della morbilità e della mortalità. Con il sostegno del programma di azioni Marie Skłodowska-Curie, il progetto REMEDY si prefigge di scoprire i meccanismi alla base della diffusione della disinformazione e la sua influenza sul comportamento. In particolare, il progetto svolge una ricerca interdisciplinare innovativa che fonde intuizioni nel settore delle scienze sociali, metodi economici e statistici e tecniche di scienza dei dati. Attraverso l’analisi dei dati e il monitoraggio del sentiment sui social media, REMEDY mette in connessione i comportamenti di resistenza alle loro devastanti conseguenze sulla salute. Il progetto sottolinea la necessità di combattere la diffusione della disinformazione su Internet.
Obiettivo
Aim: The REMEDY project will provide innovative interdisciplinary empirical research that explores the driver and health
consequences of resistant behaviour against epidemic measures, leveraging social science insights, economic and statistical methods
and data science techniques.
Background: In the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, one pressing challenge for the public health response is the general resistance
to legitimate public health policies driven by news media, influencers, extremist politicians, and rampant misinformation circulated
on the internet – a potential information disorder due to an “infodemic”. There is, however, little understanding of the mechanism
through which these potentially malicious messages propagate and how they, in turn, influence the behaviour of the population in
opposing vaccine, mask-wearing, mobility restrictions, social distancing, and consequently leading to higher levels of morbidity and
mortality.
Methods: This project employs different quantitative and research methodologies to estimate the effects of behavioural resistance on
the epidemic spread and excess mortality and whether online misinformation explains this resistance behaviour. First, we link real-world data on vaccine refusal, fines for non-compliance and the frequency and scale of anti-mask/vax/digital COVID-19 certificate
protests to the local epidemic spread, hospitalisation and excess mortality rate over time. Second, after identifying the different types
of online misinformation on COVID-19 and vaccines, we use geo-tagged digital records on search engines and social media to analyse
the association between online sentiments towards public health measures and real-world resistance behaviour at a specific geographic unit.
Impact: The project will not only provide hard evidence on the linkage between resistance behaviour and population health
outcomes, but will also present the gravity of precariously allowing misinformation to flourish on the internet.
Campo scientifico
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdata science
- social sciencessociologydemographymortality
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesinternet
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencesinfectious diseasesRNA virusescoronaviruses
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacypharmaceutical drugsvaccines
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Meccanismo di finanziamento
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinatore
93322 Aubervilliers Cedex
Francia