A Pandemic of Misinformation: Understanding Influences on Beliefs in Health and Conspiracy Myths

Background

Personal characteristics may be associated with believing misinformation and not believing in best practices to protect oneself from COVID-19.

Objective

To examine the associations of a person’s age, race/ethnicity, education, residence, health literacy, medical mistrust level, and sources of health-related information with their COVID-19 health and conspiracy myth beliefs.

Design

We surveyed adults with hypertension in Maryland and Pennsylvania between August 2020 and March 2021. Incorrect responses were summed for eight health (mean = 0.68; range 0–5) and two conspiracy (mean = 0.92; range 0–2) COVID-19 questions. Higher scores indicated more incorrect responses. Statistical analyses included two-sample t-tests, Spearman’s correlation, and log binomial regression.

Participants

In total, 561 primary care patients (mean age = 62.3 years, 60.2% female, 46.0% Black, 10.2% Hispanic, 28.2% with a Bachelor’s degree or higher, 42.8% with annual household income less than $60,000) with a diagnosis of hypertension and at least one of five commonly associated conditions.

Main Measures

Sociodemographic characteristics, health literacy, medical mistrust level, source of health-related information, and COVID-19 conspiracy and health myth beliefs.

Key Results

In multivariable analyses, participants who did not get information from medical professional sources (prevalence ratio (PR) = 1.28; 95% CI = 1.06–1.55), had less than a bachelor’s degree (PR = 1.49; 95% CI = 1.12–1.99), were less confident filling out medical forms (PR = 1.24; 95% CI = 1.02–1.50), and had higher medical mistrust (PR = 1.34; 95% CI = 1.05–1.69) were more likely to believe any health myths. Participants who had less than a bachelor’s degree (PR = 1.22; 95% CI = 1.02–1.45), were less confident filling out medical forms (PR = 1.21; 95% CI = 1.09–1.34), and had higher medical mistrust (PR = 1.72; 95% CI = 1.43–2.06) were more likely to believe any conspiracy myths.

Conclusions

Lower educational attainment and health literacy, greater medical mistrust, and certain sources of health information are associated with misinformed COVID-19 beliefs. Programs addressing misinformation should focus on groups affected by these social determinants of health by encouraging reliance on scientific sources.