Top science communicators and the leading voices of the World Health Organization come together to discuss the role of science and the scientific community in managing abundance of information and how transparent exchange of quality information can be ensured.

By Nabeela Khan

COVID-19 is a reminder about the importance of science communication. It brought to the forefront the bigger picture of how and why good science is crucial to manage public health.

The session ‘science and its role in responding to the infodemic’ stressed on many pertinent questions, such as how to address the abundance of information or the misuse of science, its interpretation, its understanding and how scientists must deal with it.

As a moderator, Dr. Arash Rashidian, Director of Science, Information and Dissemination, WHO/EMRO kickstarted the panel discussion and opened the stage for Dr Rosamund Lewis, Health Sciences Lead, Infodemic Management, WHO.

“There is abundance of information in all forms of sciences,” said Dr. Lewis to which the esteemed panelists unanimously agreed. “If there is good information, there is misinformation too,” she added.

There are instances where articles or journals (sometimes which are not even peer-reviewed) are misinterpreted or are wrongly quoted. Consequently, the onus comes on scientists who then have a greater responsibility to ensure that the right information goes out in public.

But then how do scientists communicate with journalists so that the timely and correct information goes out? In his response, Phil Rosenthal, Physician and Malaria Specialist, University of California (SF) & Editor-in-Chief of AJTMH said, “The role of journals seems pretty straightforward. We publish scientific information after peer-review and true scientific fraud is probably uncommon; misinformation can be accidental in such a situation.”

“But there are situations where the information which is straightforward to the scientific community can be misconstrued more generally,” he quipped.

The panel also highlighted that sometimes it can really get difficult to communicate with the general public. And, thus, journalists should come forward and do the difficult job of disseminating the information to the general public.

While a number of journalists and media houses are doing a wonderful job when it comes to science reporting, not many have access to such reports. In her response, Dr. Sumaiya Sheikh, Neuroscientist & Founding-Editor, AltNews Science said, “In situations where the majority of public do not have access to elite news outlets or journals, the public eventually has no choice but to rely on social media platforms, such as YouTube.”

It’s when the loudest voices on the internet end up endorsing bad science, it starts harming lives. Therefore, there is a gold standard to be followed and ethical standards when it comes to research. So, it is essential that people should rely on scientists and credible sources only. At the same time, it is important that scientists should come out of the bubble and start talking to people in the simplest ways which is easier to understand. There is a need to allow transparent exchange of information at this time.

“There is a huge porosity between science, media and the general public who are in various levels of understanding at the moment and the membranes between these three domains have become so porous that the information is filtering with no curation” responded Dr Jaya Sreedhar Physician & Media Consultant, Internews.

Given the current information age we are in, scientists have to address how to allow democratic exchange of information. The COVID-19 epidemic is presenting the community with a chance to understand how science works and why we need to come up with ways to take joint responsibility.

In a nutshell, the panelists agreed that COVID-19 is an opportunity to prepare the audiences to understand the scientific temper and bridge the gap between public, science and the media with a focus to train journalists in science reporting and encourage journalists to reach out to scientists more often.