Health Misinformation in the Digital Age: Building Resilience Through Health and Digital Health Literacy

The digital revolution has transformed how individuals access and share health information, but it has also catalyzed the widespread dissemination of misinformation and disinformation. From anti-vaccine movements and false treatment claims — including pseudoscientific remedies — to health-related conspiracy theories and broader antiscience trends, the consequences are profound: undermining trust, shaping health behaviors, and complicating public health responses at local, national, and global scales. At the same time, the growing use of social media, artificial intelligence, and other digital technologies is reshaping how individuals’ access, understand, evaluate, and use health information. In this rapidly evolving information environment, health literacy and digital health literacy are increasingly important for enabling individuals and communities to identify trustworthy information, critically assess digital content, and make informed health decisions.This Research Topic addresses the urgent and growing challenge of health misinformation in digital spaces, with particular attention to digital and health literacy as key determinants of resilience.It aims to advance understanding of the interactions between health misinformation, digital information environments, and health and digital literacy, and to identify effective approaches for strengthening individual and community resilience to misleading or false health information. Particular attention will be given to populations facing challenges related to health and digital literacy that may increase their vulnerability to health misinformation.To gather further insights into health misinformation and the role of digital and health literacy in building resilient information environments, we invite rigorous original research, reviews, case studies, and perspectives addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:o Dynamics and detection of misinformation — how false health information spreads online, and how AI, machine learning, and semantic technologies can detect and track it.o Digital and health literacy — how literacy and information-seeking skills shape vulnerability or resilience to misinformation, , how individuals access, understand, critically evaluate, and use digital health information and how literacy-building interventions can be designed and evaluated.o Vulnerable and underserved populations — misinformation risk and access barriers among youth, older adults, and communities in low-resource or low-connectivity settings, including mobile- and voice-based health information channels and inequalities in digital access and literacy.Interventions and platform responses — fact-checking, media literacy programs, health and digital literacy interventions, digital nudges, and platform policies to counter misinformation.o Psychological, social, and cultural drivers of susceptibility, including the appeal of pseudoscientific and alternative treatments and their interactions with health and digital literacy..o Equity, ethics, and governance — how AI and platform design affect exposure to misinformation across populations, and what policy actions build more resilient information environments and promote equitable access to reliable and understandable digital health information.We acknowledge the initiation and support of this Research Topic by University College London’s RDR Centre of Digital Public Health in Emergencies (dPHE). We hereby state publicly that UCL’s RDR Centre of dPHE has had no editorial input in articles included in this Research Topic, thus ensuring that all aspects of this Research Topic are evaluated objectively, and unbiased by any specific policy or opinion of UCL’s RDR Centre of dPHE. Topic editors: Kathleen W Guan, Gayo Diallo, OUEDRAOGO Ismaila Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/85062/health-misinformation-in-the-digital-age-building-resilience-through-health-and-digital-health-literacy