Equipping Scientists to Communicate about Science & Health Behaviors

The Science Communication Digital Toolkit (SciComm Toolkit) equips scientists to counter misinformation and convey accurate, trusted messages to the public.

Jenna Reno, PhD is the Primary Investigator. She is an expert in persuasive communication with 10 years of experience in stakeholder engagement and human-centered design and evaluation of health interventions. 

Misinformation online runs rampant, and scientific health information is no exception. Social media, and other forms of online communication, allow misinformation to be produced and shared at a rapid pace. Often people have difficulty distinguishing quality, evidence-based information from false misinformation. Additionally, the volume of information people are exposed to, particularly related to COVID-19 (the “infodemic”),1 causes uncertainty regarding which sources of information to trust.

The pervasiveness of misinformation comes at a deadly cost. Lack of compliance with behavioral interventions shown to prevent the spread COVID-19, such as social distancing and mask wearing, has led to increased cases and death rates.2 One cross-sectional survey of 20,734 US social media users found that 39.8% reported not complying with social distancing recommendations in March 2020.3 Researchers recently estimated that up to 400,000 American lives could have been saved by universal mask wearing4—a practice consistently undercut by misinformation refuting the effectiveness of mask wearing as a practice. Misinformation has weakened compliance with behavioral interventions by causing confusion about what behaviors actually work to prevent COVID-19. In order to increase compliance with behavioral interventions, health and science communicators must use effective strategies to increase public trust and cut through the “infodemic.”

Ultimately, this solution serves online public audiences which are predicted to include 3.43 billion worldwide monthly active social media users by 2023. To combat the spread of misinformation on social media, it is essential to provide users with accessible relevant science and health research and reliable sources of evidence-based information aimed at promoting disease prevention.5,16,17

This strategy capitalizes on social media’s capacity to facilitate trust by creating personal relationships with other users—who may be more likely to trust information from a scientist they know than information disseminated by health institutions and news media sources. By equipping scientists with communication skills and resources, we can create a network of science and health communicators who are able to collectively engage with lay audiences around the world and create a synergetic voice for science.

 Many scientists lack the training and skills necessary to be effective communicators, particularly with lay audiences. Our SciComm Toolkit will be developed with user-centered design methods to ensure that the user-interfaces present information in an intuitive and easily understood manner to assist scientists communicate about science via social media. We will engage with key stakeholders, including scientists and lay audience members, to develop a solution that is right for them.

Our solution provides a public good in the form of communicating scientific information that is free to the public via social media in a format that is easy for users to understand and apply. The SciComm Toolkit, including Dashboard, Learning Materials and Resource Center, will be made freely available to and will directly benefit CCTSI member scientists from academic, healthcare, and community organizations along with their online audiences. Initial benefit will be seen locally by unlocking community-based science expertise with the potential for broad policy influence.

Our development process will be documented and disseminated via multiple outlets including presentations and peer-reviewed (open-access) publications.

Future iterations (growth and scale), will focus on making the SciComm Toolkit globally available. This solution has the potential for rapid scale-up and dissemination to create a chorus of voices for science to combat misinformation around the world. With the number of people who use social media projected to reach 4.41 billion by 2025, effective scientist communicators have the ability to contribute to a global network promoting evidence-based health practices in response to health emergencies.

Our solution creates tangible impact by meeting the need for increased trust in science and evidence-based health interventions through effective science communication from trustworthy sources (scientists). Research by our team, as well as third-party groups, has demonstrated the effectiveness of the communication strategies our solution draws upon for building trust among populations vulnerable to misinformation.5,6,9–11,17,19 However, to-date, the resources needed to equip scientists with these strategies at the scale necessary for impact do not exist. Our solution addresses this need.  

Activities include:

• Identification of emerging health misinformation topics and strategies via our misinformation dashboard
• Equipping scientists with skills necessary to effectively communicate about science via social media
• Science communication via the production of evidence-based messages that aim to increase trust in science and health behavior interventions—specifically, messages that will translate into rapid impact in pandemics.

Outputs will include increased reach of science and health communication and increased engagement via social media with scientists and healthcare providers.

We will have a tangible impact by producing the following outcomes among 

• increasing trust in science and scientists
• increasing knowledge and understanding of science
• decreasing trust in misinformation

These outcomes are critical to facilitating rapid response and adoption of preventative behaviors during health crises.

Our solution has the potential to impact millions of people via social media by increasing trust leading to better compliance behaviors which prevent pandemic spread of disease. 

Year one, we will design and build our solution. Initial impact includes working with stakeholders to design a platform that addresses the current need for resources to support science communication. Stakeholders involved in the design process will be able to implement what they learn as they participate. This includes social media influencers in science communication who will benefit from collaborating with others.

Year two efforts will involve evaluating the extent to which our solution can generate the activities outlined above via UX/UI testing—where we’ll make necessary adjustments to improve the efficacy of the SciComm Toolkit.

Year 3 we will generate impact through building evidence to support our identified outcomes, including testing user-generated messages among lay audiences measuring trust in science, scientific knowledge and understanding, and willingness to adopt preventative behaviors.

Our initial scale-up goals will focus on dissemination and adoption of our solution by other CTSA institutions, including 50+ medical research institutions across the US. The SciComm Toolkit has the potential to be infinitely scalable across the globe. 

Further details in attachment.

During the development stage of the SciComm Toolkit we will measure progress and potential for impact via iterative, rapid prototyping methods as part of our user-centered design process. This includes integration of value proposition design principles to ensure our product meets customer needs. We'll also employ UX/UI testing metrics to evaluate prototypes of toolkit elements. This involves both user interviews and standard usefulness and usability metrics.

Pilot testing will be conducted with stakeholders. Evaluation methods include learning outcome assessments via the online learning system and ecological momentary assessment tools to monitor use of the misinformation dashboard and resource center to produce social media content (activities) and to measure reach and engagement (outputs). Pilot users will be asked to share data including their science social media posts along with reactions, shares, and comments.

To ensure the effectiveness of science communication message activities and outputs, we'll use message testing survey practices with a representative sample of lay audience social media users. A pre-test/post-test survey design will be used to measure changes before and after exposure to sample user-generated science messages. Survey measures include: trust in science and scientists, knowledge and understanding of science, and trust in misinformation.

Further details in attachment

A primary barrier is access to data streams, especially as API permissions change from time to time. Existing stakeholders have indicated the utility of being able to use the misinformation dashboard to search by geo-location, but access to this type of data is limited. We intend to develop direct relationships with platforms, including Trinity Challenge members such as Facebook and Google, to pursue opportunities to access the data necessary to incorporate this search function within the misinformation dashboard. 

Additionally, the success of this solution is dependent upon securing the funding necessary to cover start-up costs. A Trinity Challenge Award would provide the necessary funds to conduct the rapid, iterative prototyping and pilot development of our solution.

Current resources include the infrastructure of the CCTSI and access to stakeholders. We intend to integrate the SciComm Toolkit with the Designing for Dissemination resources being developed by the CCTSI D&I program. Not only will this provide an infrastructure, it will also provide the resources needed to disseminate, grow, and scale the SciComm Toolkit. 

• Colorado Clinical & Translational Sciences Institute

• University of Colorado Denver, School of Medicine, Data Science to Patient Value (D2V) initiative with the Adult and Child Consortium for Health Outcomes Research and Delivery Science

• University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado Research Center for Democracy & Technology

Our solution meets an unaddressed need to equip scientists with skills and tools to build trust and counter health misinformation with public audiences. Funding is needed to execute the prototyping and pilot stages to design, build, and test the SciComm Toolkit. The Trinity Challenge award would be instrumental in providing the funding necessary to build and execute a critical solution for building trust in science, cutting through the “infodemic,” and promoting evidence-based interventions to mitigate the spread and scale of future emerging diseases. Thus, our solution has the potential to head off thousands if not millions of preventable deaths from endemic and pandemic diseases.   

Additionally, working members of the Trinity Challenge would provide access to a network of experts who share similar goals to advance the translation of science and technology to prevent negative health outcomes. These relationships are vital to the growth and scale of our solution.

Data necessary to develop the SciComm Toolkit--specifically, our ability to build a comprehensive misinformation dashboard--is dependent on data access. Currently, our solution relies upon publicly available social media content and data. Access to more expansive, de-identified user data would allow us to conduct a universal analysis of emerging misinformation trends.

Our project is a natural fit with the mission of Trinity Challenge partner Internews. Our team shares their vision for a “world in which all people could seek, receive, and impart credible information that is important to them.” The goal of our project is to provide the support necessary for scientists to become more active members of the online information environment, and to do so in a manner that promotes safe access to good information as well as modeling and teaching critical information assessment skills. This complements their existing work to provide similar support for journalists and media outlets—and expands the network of watchdogs against misinformation.  

Additionally, we are interested in partnering with Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Specifically, Dr. Shirley Ho’s (Research Director for Arts, Humanities, Education and Social Sciences at the President’s Office, NTU) research agenda—which emphasizes the roles of values, social media and other emerging modes of communication in shaping public attitudes toward science and technology--would enhance the efficacy and the scope of our Science Communication Digital Toolkit. 

We are also interested in partnering with members (such as Facebook and Google) who might share access to the date necessary to provide greater power to our misinformation dashboard.