JMIR Infodemiology

Focusing on determinants and distribution of health information and misinformation on the internet, and its effect on public and individual health.

Editor-in-Chief:

Tim Ken Mackey, MAS, PhD, Professor, University of California San Diego; Director, Healthcare Research & Policy, University of California San Diego - Extension; Director, Global Health Policy and Data Institute


JMIR Infodemiology (JI, ISSN 2564-1891, Editor-in-Chief: Tim Ken Mackey) launched in 2021 is a PubMed Central, PubMed, Scopus, DOAJ, CABI-indexed, peer reviewed journal, focusing on determinants and the distribution of health information and misinformation on the internet, and its effect on public and individual health. The new scientific discipline of "Infodemiology," first introduced in 2002, has been gaining momentum due to the COVID-19 infodemic, with the WHO recognizing it as an important pillar to manage public health emergencies. JMIR Publications is proud to have been spearheading the advancement of this new scientific discipline for more than a decade. We are now accelerating the development of this new, interdisciplinary discipline with the first and only journal devoted to this rapidly evolving field, by bringing together thought leaders in research, data science, and policy. Areas of interest include information monitoring (infoveillance, including social listening); ehealth literacy and science literacy; knowledge refinement and quality improvement processes and policies; and the influence of political and commercial interests on effective knowledge translation. 

Recent Articles

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Infodemic Management

To respond to the need to establish infodemic management functions at the national public health institute in Germany (Robert Koch Institute, RKI), we explored and assessed available data sources, developed a social listening and integrated analysis framework, and defined when infodemic management functions should be activated during emergencies.

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Misinformation and Disinformation Outbreaks and Information Prevalence Studies

Alternative cancer treatment is associated with a greater risk of death than cancer patients undergoing conventional treatments. Anecdotal evidence suggests cancer patients view paid advertisements promoting alternative cancer treatment on social media, but the extent and nature of this advertising remain unknown. This context suggests an urgent need to investigate alternative cancer treatment advertising on social media.

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Infoveillance and Social Listening

Patient perspectives are central to the US Food and Drug Administration’s benefit-risk decision-making process in the evaluation of medical products. Traditional channels of communication may not be feasible for all patients and consumers. Social media websites have increasingly been recognized by researchers as a means to gain insights into patients’ views about treatment and diagnostic options, the health care system, and their experiences living with their conditions. Consideration of multiple patient perspective data sources offers the Food and Drug Administration the opportunity to capture diverse patient voices and experiences with chronic pain.

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Infodemic Management

Antivaccination views pervade online social media, fueling distrust in scientific expertise and increasing the number of vaccine-hesitant individuals. Although previous studies focused on specific countries, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the vaccination discourse worldwide, underpinning the need to tackle low-credible information flows on a global scale to design effective countermeasures.

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Infoveillance and Social Listening

COVID-19 severity is amplified among individuals with obesity, which may have influenced mainstream media coverage of the disease by both improving understanding of the condition and increasing weight-related stigma.

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Health and Risk Communication

Social media has transformed the way health messages are communicated. This has created new challenges and ethical considerations while providing a platform to share nutrition information for communities to connect and for information to spread. However, research exploring the web-based diet communities of popular diets is limited.

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Vaccination Sentiment and Anti-Vaccination Infodemiology

Social media plays a pivotal role in disseminating news globally and acts as a platform for people to express their opinions on various topics. A wide variety of views accompany COVID-19 vaccination drives across the globe, often colored by emotions that change along with rising cases, approval of vaccines, and multiple factors discussed online.

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Original Papers

The public perception of driving under the influence of cannabis (DUIC) is not consistent with current evidence. The internet is an influential source of information available for people to find information about cannabis.

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Infoveillance and Social Listening

As rare diseases (RDs) receive increasing attention, obtaining accurate RD incidence estimates has become an essential concern in public health. Since RDs are difficult to diagnose, include diverse types, and have scarce cases, traditional epidemiological methods are costly in RD registries. With the development of the internet, users have become accustomed to searching for disease-related information through search engines before seeking medical treatment. Therefore, online search data provide a new source for estimating RD incidences.

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Infodemic Management

Socializing is one of the main motivations for water pipe smoking. Restrictions on social gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic might have influenced water pipe smokers’ behaviors. As one of the most popular social media platforms, Reddit has been used to study public opinions and user experiences.

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Original Papers

The proliferation of e-cigarette content on YouTube is concerning because of its possible effect on youth use behaviors. YouTube has a personalized search and recommendation algorithm that derives attributes from a user’s profile, such as age and sex. However, little is known about whether e-cigarette content is shown differently based on user characteristics.

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Misinformation and Disinformation Outbreaks and Information Prevalence Studies

Social media has served as a lucrative platform for spreading misinformation and for promoting fraudulent products for the treatment, testing, and prevention of COVID-19. This has resulted in the issuance of many warning letters by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). While social media continues to serve as the primary platform for the promotion of such fraudulent products, it also presents the opportunity to identify these products early by using effective social media mining methods.

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Preprints Open for Peer-Review

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