 Misinformation is dangerous. It impacts public health on a daily basis and in many different ways. It can make people more hesitant to receive vaccines and push them towards false and dangerous alternatives. Misinformation can also reduce people's trust in scientists and health officials. Governments rely on such trust to manage public health issues. So how can public health communicators manage health misinformation? One of the most promising ways is by teaching information literacy. This means that people can be empowered to fight the spread of misinformation if they have the skills to assess the accuracy and credibility of information they come across. But before this can happen, people need to be convinced that information literacy is important. Fortunately for us, medical professionals have developed a toolkit that can help with that. This toolkit is called the Health Belief Model. For years, doctors have been using the Health Belief Model to encourage patients to take preventative action against illness. For example, they have used it to encourage people to get regular blood pressure screenings and take cholesterol medication. Our research argues that public health communicators can use the Health Belief Model to help people understand the risks associated with misinformation. In this way, people will be able to protect themselves from misinformation more effectively. The Health Belief Model argues that how people respond to health risks depends on two factors. First, the extent to which a person believes a health risk will impact them. Second, the extent to which they believe their actions can protect them. For example, if Alex believes that tuberculosis poses a severe risk to their health but also believes that there is nothing they can do about it. The Health Belief Model says that they likely won't take any preventative action or if Alex believes they can prevent tuberculosis but also believes that it only poses a small risk to their health. They are again unlikely to take any preventative action. According to the Health Belief Model, if we want to improve the chance that Alex will take preventative action against tuberculosis, we need to convince Alex that tuberculosis both poses a risk and can be prevented. Like tuberculosis, health misinformation poses risks and it is preventable. If public health workers, educators and communicators can raise awareness of the negative effects of misinformation on personal health and increase confidence that the public can help prevent it, they will better prepare the public to respond to health misinformation. By applying the Health Belief Model to health misinformation, we can help people to understand the risks of health misinformation and encourage them to make choices that minimize its damage. Thanks for watching! You can find more details about this study in the published article linked in the video description. And if you liked this, please share it with your friends.