Defining Health Misinformation: Theoretical Concept Analysis
Johanna Saia Pope, Paula Byrne, Declan Devane, Tina D Purnat, Maura Dowling · 2026
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Description
Johanna Saia Pope and colleagues analyze, in a 2026 concept study, what the term health misinformation means in current writing. False health claims are a growing worry in a digital age, yet the label is fuzzy. The team ran the first phase of a three-phase concept analysis. It combined a systematic trawl of literature from 2016 to 2022, a stratified random sample of texts, and a theme-by-theme reading of how authors use the term.
Writers traced the problem to fast technology change, actors profiting from false claims, and cultural strains such as fragmentation and fading trust in authorities. They depicted misinformation as a scourge marked by falseness or deceit, persuasive tricks, and power to break agreement. Harms reach individuals, communities, and social systems. Disagreements surfaced across the literature, which the article does not hide. Later phases will add interviews and combine both strands into a tighter shared definition.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Johanna Saia Pope, Paula Byrne, Declan Devane, Tina D Purnat, Maura Dowling |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 79 KB |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |