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Public Health On Call

1023 - How Social Media is Changing the Way We Talk About Health

Public Health On Call

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

News, Health & Fitness, Medicine

4.6 • 644 Ratings

🗓️ 16 March 2026

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

About this episode:

Once a useful tool for sharing critical information during the pandemic, social media has evolved into an oversaturated and underregulated marketplace for health disinformation. In this episode: Infectious disease epidemiologist and science communicator Jessica Malaty Rivera analyzes the online landscape and advises listeners on how to approach alarmist and misleading health content.

Guest:

Jessica Malaty Rivera, MS, is a DrPH student at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a researcher at the Center of Health Security.

Host:

Lindsay Smith Rogers, MA, is the producer of the Public Health On Call podcast, an editor for Expert Insights, and the director of content strategy for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Show links and related content:

Transcript information:

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,

0:05.9

where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges.

0:16.3

If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jhhhu.edu.

0:23.8

That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes.

0:30.5

Hey listeners, it's Lindsay Smith-Rogers, producer of Public Health on Call.

0:34.1

Today, the role of social media in health communication.

0:38.9

I speak with Jessica Malati-River infectious disease epidemiologist and senior science communication advisor with the

0:44.0

De Beaumont Foundation. She's also a doctoral student at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of

0:48.5

Public Health and Health Security and a public health influencer with more than 430,000 Instagram followers.

0:55.8

Let's listen.

0:57.3

Jessica Melati Rivera, thank you so much for joining us on Public Health On Call.

1:00.9

How are you?

1:01.5

I'm good. Thanks so much for having me.

1:03.2

Good.

1:03.7

It is a delight to see you.

1:05.1

And for those of you that are listening, we are actually doing this podcast together in the studio.

1:10.2

And it's really fun to be in physically

1:12.7

the same space. For those that don't know you, would you give us a little bit of a background?

1:17.1

Sure. So I am Jessica Malati-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-Evera. I'm an infectious disease epidemiologist by training,

1:22.2

and I've been in the science communication space for about two decades. I'm also a third-year

1:27.1

DRPH student at Johns Hopkins

1:28.9

in the Health Security Track, where I am studying trust and misinformation and online ecosystems,

...

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