How infodemic intoxicates public health surveillance: from a big to a slow data culture
Open Access
- 8 February 2022
- journal article
- research article
- Published by BMJ in Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
- Vol. 76 (6), 623-625
- https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2021-216584
Abstract
Too much data? Too much information? The COVID-19 pandemic has made the case. The WHO coined the term ‘infodemic’ to describe the issue of overabundance of information, including misinformation, disseminated in real time via multiple channels.1 2 A related concept is ‘datademic’ to describe the overabundance of data. I argue in this essay that infodemic intoxicates public health surveillance and decision-making, and that we need to revisit how we conduct surveillance in the age of big data by fostering a slow data culture.Keywords
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