059 - Social Media, Scientific Uncertainty, and Political Polarization—COVID-19's Misinformation Storm

Public Health On Call

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

News, Health & Fitness, Medicine

4.6 • 644 Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2020

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Misinformation about COVID-19 can have real human costs in the forms of physical harm and "straining the fabric of democracy." But where does misinformation come from and how can it be prevented when so much is still unknown about the virus? Guest host Dr. Colleen Barry, chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management, talks with Dr. Brendan Nyhan, an expert in the politics of misinformation about health, about why people might believe false claims, the role of politics, and how to keep science at the center of the discussion.

Learn more: jhsph.edu/covid-19

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Public Health On Call, a new podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
0:12.7	Our focus is the novel coronavirus.
0:15.2	I'm Josh Sharfstein, a faculty member at Johns Hopkins, and also a former secretary of Maryland's health department.
0:21.6	Our goal with this podcast is to bring evidence and experts to help you understand today's
0:26.9	news about the novel coronavirus and what it means for tomorrow.
0:30.5	If you have questions, you can email them to public health question at jhh.edu.
0:36.3	That's public health question at jh.u.edu
0:40.1	for future podcast episodes.
0:42.8	Today, Colleen Berry, the chair of the Department
0:46.2	of Health Policy and Management
0:48.0	at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,
0:50.7	talks to Brendan Nyhan, a professor of political science
0:54.0	at Dartmouth, and an expert
0:55.6	on the politics of misinformation. They discuss how to prevent transmission of misinformation
1:01.3	about the coronavirus, how to counter misinformation when it gets out there, and what it all means
1:06.9	for helping people take care of themselves and their communities. Let's listen.
1:13.3	Brendan, you are an expert in the politics of misinformation about health, including during
1:20.1	disease, epidemics, and outbreaks. Give us a snapshot of the kinds of questions that interest you.
1:26.9	Well, I'm most interested in why people believe things that are false or unsupported about the
1:31.6	world. I started studying those questions in the area of politics and public policy, and then
1:36.6	I started to look more specifically at health, looking at the debates around the Affordable
1:41.3	Care Act in 2009 and 2010, looking at beliefs about
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.