Periodic Reporting for period 1 - REMEDY (The Effect of Resistance to Epidemic Measures on Disease Spread and Mortality – What’s the Role of Online Misinformation?)
Berichtszeitraum: 2023-09-04 bis 2026-01-03
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 realworld 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.
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 realworld 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.
Original data collection
Analysis connecting the digital sphere and real world behaviour
Theoretical integration across disciplines
Analysis connecting the digital sphere and real world behaviour
Theoretical integration across disciplines
The REMEDY project will generate significant scientific, societal, and policy impacts through its interdisciplinary investigation into the links between online misinformation, public resistance to epidemic measures, and population health outcomes. Key results will include a geospatial database of behavioral resistance indicators (e.g. vaccine refusal rates, protest scales, and fines for non-pharmaceutical intervention violations) across NUTS-2/3 regions in France, Italy, the UK, and the US. This will be complemented by rigorous econometric evidence demonstrating a 10–15% increase in excess mortality in high-resistance regions and validating the life-saving role of mobility restrictions (40–50% mortality reduction). Further, the project will catalog over 100 COVID-19 misinformation narratives (e.g. "vaccine microchips" or "5G spread") and develop algorithmic tools linking social media sentiment to real-world resistance, revealing a 30% higher anti-NPI sentiment in populist-leaning areas. The integration of these findings into a novel theoretical framework—synthesizing the Health Belief Model, media ecology theory, and sociodemographic predictors—will provide policymakers with actionable insights for intervention design.
Scientifically, REMEDY pioneers the integration of digital epidemiology, econometrics, and social theory, validating natural language processing tools for real-time infodemic monitoring. Societally, the project will directly reduce misinformation-related harm by supporting WHO and European Commission strategies, while enabling tailored health communication for high-risk demographics (e.g. low-income or populist-voting communities). Economically, improved compliance driven by evidence-based interventions could reduce pandemic healthcare costs by 15–20% and mitigate workforce losses from avoidable mortality. Policy impacts include strengthening enforcement of the EU Digital Services Act—holding platforms accountable for vaccine misinformation—and creating blueprints for "infodemic response units" within public health agencies.
To maximize impact, several needs must be addressed. Further research should include longitudinal studies on misinformation in emerging outbreaks and randomised controlled trials testing counter-messaging strategies. Access to standardized, high-resolution data (e.g. EU-wide harmonization of NUTS-3 health/fine records) and formal data-sharing agreements with social media platforms (e.g. Meta, Twitter) are critical for scaling tools. Commercialization opportunities include licensing predictive dashboards for health agencies and developing media literacy apps for public use. Intellectual property protection, particularly for algorithmic sentiment-resistance correlation models, requires proactive patent strategies. Supportive regulatory frameworks—such as EU/US "infodemic standards" defining actionable misinformation thresholds—must be advocated. International expansion via WHO collaborations (e.g. piloting tools in India, Brazil, or with Africa CDC) and securing ERC/NSF grants for cross-continental studies will enhance global relevance. Finally, capacity building through training programs for health workers and replication studies will ensure sustained adoption.
REMEDY bridges academic research and societal action, proving how online misinformation fuels epidemic resistance. Near-term priorities include policy partnerships (WHO/EU), tech industry engagement, and open-data advocacy. Long-term success hinges on establishing regulatory frameworks for infodemics, commercializing toolkits, and global scalability via ERC/UN pathways. Addressing these needs will transform REMEDY into a sustained global initiative against health misinformation.
Scientifically, REMEDY pioneers the integration of digital epidemiology, econometrics, and social theory, validating natural language processing tools for real-time infodemic monitoring. Societally, the project will directly reduce misinformation-related harm by supporting WHO and European Commission strategies, while enabling tailored health communication for high-risk demographics (e.g. low-income or populist-voting communities). Economically, improved compliance driven by evidence-based interventions could reduce pandemic healthcare costs by 15–20% and mitigate workforce losses from avoidable mortality. Policy impacts include strengthening enforcement of the EU Digital Services Act—holding platforms accountable for vaccine misinformation—and creating blueprints for "infodemic response units" within public health agencies.
To maximize impact, several needs must be addressed. Further research should include longitudinal studies on misinformation in emerging outbreaks and randomised controlled trials testing counter-messaging strategies. Access to standardized, high-resolution data (e.g. EU-wide harmonization of NUTS-3 health/fine records) and formal data-sharing agreements with social media platforms (e.g. Meta, Twitter) are critical for scaling tools. Commercialization opportunities include licensing predictive dashboards for health agencies and developing media literacy apps for public use. Intellectual property protection, particularly for algorithmic sentiment-resistance correlation models, requires proactive patent strategies. Supportive regulatory frameworks—such as EU/US "infodemic standards" defining actionable misinformation thresholds—must be advocated. International expansion via WHO collaborations (e.g. piloting tools in India, Brazil, or with Africa CDC) and securing ERC/NSF grants for cross-continental studies will enhance global relevance. Finally, capacity building through training programs for health workers and replication studies will ensure sustained adoption.
REMEDY bridges academic research and societal action, proving how online misinformation fuels epidemic resistance. Near-term priorities include policy partnerships (WHO/EU), tech industry engagement, and open-data advocacy. Long-term success hinges on establishing regulatory frameworks for infodemics, commercializing toolkits, and global scalability via ERC/UN pathways. Addressing these needs will transform REMEDY into a sustained global initiative against health misinformation.