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@MHPHealth | #MakingPerfectSenseOfHealth

Welcome to the fake news age – telling health fact vs fiction

What can communicators do to help people tell health fact from fiction?

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F O R E W O R D

K AT E P O G S O NHead of Health, ENGINE MHP

It is no secret that fake news has become an ‘expression du jour’. In healthcare, the consequences of misinformation or fake news can be incredibly serious. The ongoing noise and attention of anti-vax groups and their associated arguments has led the World Health Organisation to list ‘Vaccine Hesitancy’ as one of the world’s most significant public health threats. This is despite conclusive evidence to demonstrate the benefit of vaccinations on an individual’s health, as well as the broader population.

So, what is going wrong? How do we as communicators counter misinformation and what can we learn from the increased interest in behavioural psychology approaches to evidence-base our communications?

Welcome to our Fake News Panel – we are delighted to be joined by such a variety of media, behavioural and clinical experts to discuss why misinformation continues to proliferate and what we can do to try and get ahead of the curve.

We are also pleased to share with you new research conducted by ENGINE MHP looking at what media sources the public trust most with information relating to their health, and also to present you with a new model, developed in collaboration with the Affective Brain Lab at University College London, looking at effective mechanisms for communications in this, the Networked Age.

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P A N E L L I S T B I O G R A P H I E S

D R C H R I S T I A N J E S S E NDoctor and TV Presenter

Dr Christian Jessen is a popular health campaigner who combines his medical career with a successful media career. He works closely with various charities (including Terrence Higgins Trust, Ditch the Label and Battersea Dogs & Cats Home) to help raise awareness and make health accessible to everyone. Dr Christian is well-known for presenting Dr Christian Will See You Now and Dr Christian: 12 Hours to Cure Your Street along with the multi award-winning Embarrassing Bodies and Supersize vs Superskinny. He also presented the critically acclaimed documentaries Undercover Doctor: Cure Me I’m Gay, How the Rich Live Longer and co-hosted Drugs Live and Stand Up to Cancer (Channel 4). He writes regular health columns and is the author of Dr Christian’s Guide to Growing Up Online, Dr Christian’s Guide to Growing Up, Dr Christian’s Guide to the Tricky Stuff, Dr Christian’s Guide to You, Can I Just Ask? and Supersize vs Superskinny.

drchristianjessen.com

@DoctorChristian

D R F I O N A M c M A S T E RBehavioural Psychologist & Consultant, Innovia Technology

Dr Fiona McMaster is an innovation consultant at Cambridge-based Innovia Technology, where she specialises in projects that link innovation with behavioural science and healthcare. Prior to working at Innovia, Fiona was an academic, designing and delivering public health courses and research projects in the UK, the USA, Singapore, China and Nigeria. Her health interests are diverse, and projects she has worked on have included interventions to reduce obesity in children in the US to increasing medication compliance for HIV patients in Nigeria. She regularly trains health and social care practitioners in motivational interviewing, and is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers.

innoviatech.com

@FionaMcMaster

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T O M C H I V E R SFormer Telegraph Journalist

Tom Chivers was BuzzFeed UK's science writer between 2015 and 2018. Before joining BuzzFeed, he spent seven years at the Telegraph, where he once interviewed Terry Pratchett and was told he was 'far too nice to be a journalist'. He has struggled on despite this handicap, winning several awards including a Statistical Excellence in Journalism award from the Royal Statistical Society and being shortlisted for Best Science Writer in the British Journalism Awards 2017.

@TomChivers

R O B D AW S O NDirector of Communications, Advocacy & Support, Meningitis Research Foundation and Chair, Stempra

Rob Dawson is a strategic communications director with expertise in health and science across industry, not-for-profit and public sector, currently working for the Meningitis Research Foundation. Rob is a Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) member and the Chair of the STEM PR Association. His awards include Third Sector Awards 2018, Communications Campaign of the Year for Meningitis Research Foundation’s adolescent vaccine campaign; Communiqué Awards 2007, Best Use of a Survey for GlaxoSmithKline’s HIV portfolio; Communiqué Awards 2005, Best Patient or Public Campaign for a social marketing campaign for Chelsea and Westminster Healthcare Trust.

@bioscifan

K AT E P O G S O NHead of Health, ENGINE MHP

Kate brings over 10 years’ experience in pharmaceutical and healthcare communications, supporting clients across a broad range of communications disciplines including public affairs and health policy, product communications, disease awareness campaigns, market access programmes and crisis management.

Kate’s understanding of the pharmaceutical and media landscape stem from a career at two leading healthcare public relations agencies and an academic background in biochemistry and molecular biology. Kate was awarded the Communiqué Healthcare Leader Award in 2018.

@KateP82

P U B L I C P O L L I N G A N A LY S I S

In the Networked Age, a huge amount of data is processed, packaged and published in the media, both traditional and online. But how often is this information misinterpreted or misquoted? Are we living in an era of misinformation? MHP commissioned public polling* to better understand where the public go for health misinformation and which sources are most trusted.

The polling results demonstrated the majority receive health information from and trust the traditional sources: healthcare professionals and the NHS. However, social media and the news media are becoming a more prominent source of health information, but trust in these platforms is limited: seven in ten people agree they often hear contradictory health advice through the media and struggle to know what to believe.

This presents a challenge for those who are responsible for producing a story: from the scientist in the laboratory, through their institution’s press office, to the journalist and their editor – to ensure that the story is clear, relevant and contextualised, whilst also being interesting and ‘newsworthy’. There is also a pressing need to equip the public with tools to increase health and media literacy, as two-thirds of those struggling to know what to believe rarely or never check that the health information they read is correct. Finally, our polling suggested that we also need to address the bigger picture, as an overwhelming majority (79%) of those polled saw the need for a call to action by social media platforms and the Government to regulate misinformation.

This data has highlighted that there is a lot of work to be done to limit misinformation – how can we, as communication professionals, help lead the change?

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X

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* ComRes interviewed 2,041 British adults on behalf of MHP, aged 18+ online between 15-16 May 2019. Data were weighted to be representative of British adults aged 18+ by key demographics including age, gender, region and social grade.

adults rank social media among their top three places they get their health information

1 in 5 20%

2 in 5 adults rank the media among the top three places they most often see or hear their health information

put family and friends among their top three most trusted sources of health information – third after healthcare professionals (83%) and the NHS (72%)

of people rarely or never check the health information they read is correct

people (29%) feel they are more likely to believe a health story if it is shared by a friend on their social channels

Half of UK adults

Fact or fiction

in 10

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K AT E P O G S O NHead of Health, ENGINE MHP

So, what is the role of the communicator in ensuring accurate, evidence-based reporting and understanding of critical health topics?

The first point is that fake news is not intrinsically new. The propensity for individuals to listen and act upon information which is unfounded is a historic one. But at the heart of how we process information are several psychological principles which communicators need to better understand.

• We are influenced by people like ourselves: ideas and behaviours are transmitted through networks and we are more likely to listen to ‘experts’ who share our own values. ‘Similarity’ very much trumps ‘accuracy’ when it comes to the people we listen to. One example of this was a study from the group, Health Feedback, which analysed the pervasiveness of fake news on Facebook and other social media. Of the ten most shared articles pertaining to health in 2018 analysed by the research, seven contained misleading or false information

• We are biased towards the social norm: telling people that 65 per cent of patients missed their GP appointment in that quarter is not going to spur the audience into being good future citizens, they are more likely to think ‘well, I won’t try hard if everyone is doing it’!

• We suffer from confirmation bias and strongly prefer news we agree with: even worse, we tend to overlook evidence which contradicts with what we already think is true! (she says, frantically Googling studies to tell me that Sauvignon Blanc actually has a net health benefit)

T H E R O L E O F T H E C O M M U N I C A T O R

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So, while the appetite and impact of fake news isn’t new, the rise of social and digital platforms has allowed this intrinsic behaviour to be amplified. Namely:

• Digital algorithms serve up content you have already engaged with and prioritises influencers over content

• Search makes it easier to ‘prove’ things we already believe and ignore contradictory evidence

• Like buttons and other digital voting tools make it easy for us to commit to positions and less likely that we will change our mind in the future

• Digital media models make opinion as well as fact an information currency

What can we do about it? How can we best balance fake news, especially in healthcare, so that patients have ready access to accurate information to support healthy decision making?

• Think messenger over message. Yes, I’m sure your primary investigator on the phase III product trial is world-renowned, but they may not resonate with the non-specialist clinical or patient audience you want to reach. If we are intrinsically more likely to listen more intently to ‘people like me’, how can we bring these voices to the fore in our media activity?

• Fish where the fish are. Using digital paid strategies, we can create and serve owned content which infiltrates and balances less robust or evidence-based content

• Don’t forget the power of below the line comments. Jameela Jamil’s calling b*llsh*t on Khloe Kardashian’s weight-loss Instagram post received as many likes and shares as the original posting. The power of right to reply spoke volumes here

• Education, education, education. Cr*p science can only be allowed to be so if people cannot see the flaws in the study design or the conclusions. There is a role to provide context and clarity more quickly to help people see fact from fiction

If there is one truth in all of the dialogue about news which is fake, it’s that this isn’t going away. But hopefully, we are all becoming a little more sophisticated in our roles as communicators to ensure the balance is redressed.

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The purpose of effective communications is ultimately to inform a desired change in behaviour. It therefore seems sensible that communications agencies should make use of the insights coming out of latest research in the behavioural sciences.Our partnership with the Affective Brain Lab included a review of published literature to ensure the New Rules of Influence were fully evidence-based.

The literature review analysed over 200 papers from health psychology, behavioural economics and social psychology and identified six communications-relevant factors that have been shown to have robust effects on people’s choices and behaviour. These domains are critical in guiding how we build effective communications campaigns, cognisant of how people like to receive and respond to information presented and, ultimately, to produce effective change.

The MHP Influence Model is the output of this research; six domains, built from published evidence, which help our clients apply the Rules of Influence to their key audiences.

The research findings challenged the way we, as communicators, usually operate: encouraging us to consider networks vs hierarchies in terms of spokespeople; adopting an ‘ask not tell’ approach to our messaging; which puts decision-making in the hands of the audience and emphasising the power of the positive.

As the need for communications to show increased business value intensifies, demonstrating the effectiveness, and not the reach, of our efforts is critical. Understanding real influence is the first step on this journey and look forward to sharing more of this work soon.

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O U R I N F L U E N C E M O D E L

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R E WA R D TO S P U R , F E A R   TO   D E T E R

Action can be motivated by positive associations or reward;

fear is more likely to induce avoidance of action

PEOPLE ARE INFLUENCED BY WHAT OTHERS  DO AROUND THEMPeople use social information as an informational cue when

making decisions

P E R S O N A L I SAT I O N O F L A N G UAG E .

TA I LO R A N D K E E P   P O S I T I V EPeople generally respond to positive framing and

messages tailored to their passions and pursuits

S I M I L A R I T Y O F M E S S E N G E R E N H A N C E S

C R E D I B I L I T YOur key messengers

should be similar, likable and expert

A S K , D O N ’ T T E L L

People value items they selected themselves more than the same exact item selected

for them

PEOPLE ARE ALTRUISTIC, BUT THEY ALSO CARE WHAT OTHERS THINK

ABOUT THEMWe are motivated by actions which

boost self-esteem and status

SPUR OR DETER?

SOVEREIGNTY

SOCIAL NORMS

SPECIFICITY

SIMILARITY

AUDIENCE

SELF-IDENTITY

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A F T E R W O R D

N I C K C O L L I N SAssociate Director, ENGINE MHP

To a journalist, the need to be on the look-out for ‘fake news’ isn’t especially new. Checking your sources is paramount, and you develop a pretty keen sense for information that might be unreliable. I remember one memorable night on the Daily Telegraph newsdesk in 2010, when police in Newcastle were in a stand-off with the gunman Raoul Moat. We picked up unverified local radio reports that Gazza had turned up at the scene with a fishing rod and some chicken, offering to help. I’ll never forget his agent’s voice on the phone when I called to check. “He’s done what? I’ll have to call you back…”

As a science reporter, fake news is usually less to do with outright fraud, than it is to do with the way data and evidence are presented. Of course fabrication is a big concern in academic science, and you have to do your due diligence – but identifying fraudulent results is the job of the academic community, not journalists. The bigger worry is that you will become the unwitting proponent of fake news by falling foul of a scientist - or indeed a press officer - who has presented something out of context, or without the correct caveats and limitations.

With the daily pressure to cover more and more great stories, you’ll always be tempted to follow the most sensational headlines, but at the same time you have to be constantly wary of what people are telling you. “Smoking doesn’t cause lung cancer, new study shows” would be a cracking story, if it weren’t for that pesky body of evidence showing that the opposite is true.

As a journalist, you quickly learn to watch out for the warning signs: studies done in mice; low sample sizes; journals you’ve never heard of before. While the majority of scientists are at pains to talk down the story you want to write, and science press officers are taking steps to tackle hype and sensationalism, everyone is under pressure to get coverage.

Above all, it’s about relationships. A good press officer understands the pressures journalists are under and will work with them to take the strongest possible line which accurately reflects the story in its proper context. These are the PR contacts that journalists cherish. A bad one will either lead you down the garden path or stamp out anything resembling a good news line. These are the ones you don’t call back.

The role of a press officer isn’t just to push stories, it’s to help shape them in the right way. With journalists now under pressure to produce more content, more quickly, and generate more clicks, that role has become more important than ever.

Before joining MHP, Nick was the Science Correspondent at The Daily Telegraph.

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N O T E S

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R U L E 1Who you are is as important as what you do

R U L E 2Influencers and passions spread ideas

R U L E 3Arguments are never won,

but outcomes are

T H E N E W

R U L E S O F

I N F L U E N C E

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We are a strategic communications consultancy built for the networked age, applying the new rules of influence to solve complex problems.

Headquartered in London, with 160 consultants worldwide, we provide deep expertise in corporate, reputation, brand strategy, and specialist audience engagement.

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