A complicated relationship

Mareike Schomerus, Krittika Gorur, Pooja Gupta, Daniel Hernandez, Sandhya Srinivas, Alice Escande, Mark Milrine, Chang Tang, Lara Tembey

SECTOR

Behavioral science

PROJECT TYPE

Groundwork

BEHAVIORAL THEME

Misinformation | Displacement | Health

Location

Global South

OVERVIEW

Bringing behavioural science into the fight against health misinformation in a pandemic in displacement settings

While the COVID-19 infodemic might have looked like a universal challenge, it is not. This is because the experience of the disease and its many impacts are not collective.

What COVID-19 means differs from country to country, from situation to situation, and from person to person. How each individual is forced to contend with their situation is deeply influenced by who they are and in what situation they find themselves, their cultural background and the information that is accessible to them.

THEMATIC AREAS

Personal context of the person receiving information thus determines which pieces of information they retain, share and act upon. These contexts can be marked by other areas of uncertainty and volatility that interact with the volatility of a pandemic. One such context that is marked by uncertainty is that of displacement. This report offers groundwork towards a research agenda on how behavioral mechanisms apply in the reception and consumption of information on infectious diseases in displacement settings.