ARLINGTON, Virginia—A new industrywide coalition of healthcare groups aims to combat persistent problems with misinformation, a lingering problem exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Coalition for Trust in Health & Science is expected to formally launch on March 2. The coalition will contain more than 50 groups that run the gamut from payers, providers to drug manufacturers.
The groups agreed that “whatever the differences are between us … we feel so strongly that the American people deserve support to make their decisions,” said Reed Tuckson, co-founder of the Black Coalition Against COVID that seeks to combat the pandemic. Tuckson spoke Friday at the Health Datapalooza in Arlington, Virginia.
Some of the groups that are part of the coalition include the American Medical Association, AHIP and American Hospital Association.
Tuckson said the group’s vision is to ensure that people have the necessary and appropriate information to make informed healthcare choices.
“To achieve this we have to make trust across the entire sector and … no organization can do it alone,” he said. “We want measurable increases of public trust in the system.”
The coalition will have a website that includes information about busting popular health myths.
A key goal is to ensure that the coalition can act quickly to combat new misinformation that may crop up.
“If something emerges tomorrow … every single communication person in every one of those 50 organizations will send that correct information through the ecosystem the same day,” Tuckson said. That is what we are trying to get to: fast response by credible people and everybody will have their talking points.”
There will also be an interactive compendium that lists every program an organization is doing. The goal is to create a forum for people to share information and best practices.
Healthcare groups have struggled to fully combat misinformation and disinformation that has been popularized on social media and other channels, especially surrounding the use of the COVID-19 vaccines.
In 2021, the AMA and other physician groups agreed to combat public health disinformation that was spread by health professionals.