ArticleJMIR infodemiology2025
Quality Assessment of Health Information on Social Media During a Public Health Crisis: Infodemiology Study.
Article in JMIR infodemiology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Development and Validation of an Online Oral Health Education Module for Pakistani Parents Using the ADDIE Model.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The quality and reliability of short videos about Sjögren syndrome on TikTok and Bilibili: A cross-sectional study.Medicine · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: The quality of health information on social media is a major concern, especially during the early stages of public health crises. While the quality of the results of the popular search engines related to particular diseases has been analyzed in the literature, the quality of health-related information on social media, such as X (formerly Twitter), during the early stages of a public health crisis has not been addressed. Objective: This study aims to evaluate the quality of health-related information on social media during the early stages of a public health crisis. Methods: A cross-sectional analysis was conducted on health-related tweets in the early stages of the most recent public health crisis (the COVID-19 pandemic). The study analyzed the top 100 websites that were most frequently retweeted in the early stages of the crisis, categorizing them by content type, website affiliation, and exclusivity. Quality and reliability were assessed using the DISCERN and JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) benchmarks. Results: Our analyses showed that 95% (95/100) of the websites met only 2 of the 4 JAMA quality criteria. DISCERN scores revealed that 81% (81/100) of the websites were evaluated as low scores, and only 11% (11/100) of the websites were evaluated as high scores. The analysis revealed significant disparities in the quality and reliability of health information across different website affiliations, content types, and exclusivity. Conclusions: This study highlights a significant issue with the quality, reliability, and transparency of online health-related information during a public health challenge. The extensive shortcomings observed across frequently shared websites on Twitter highlight the critical need for continuous evaluation and improvement of online health content during the early stages of future health crises. Without consistent oversight and improvement, we risk repeating the same shortcomings in future, potentially more challenging situations.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.