Course Overview

With the growing digitization around the world, the relevance of social media and internet has increased manifold. This also means that the information can be spread rapidly, without much delay. While this is useful in many cases, it also fuels the fire of misinformation when it comes to a pandemic or any disease outbreak. Infodemic refers to an information overload that often includes rumours or misleading information circulating in both the digital as well as the physical environments during a disease outbreak. It causes huge confusion and an abnormally high risk-taking behaviour that can be harmful to the health. It also leads to a situation of mistrust in the company authorities and undermines their health response.

An infodemic can intensify or worst, increase the outbreak duration, when people aren’t aware of what measures they should take to protect themselves from the disease. Therefore, it becomes imperative that an infodemic be managed with due diligence. Infodemic management is the systematic use of facts and data-based analysis to manage an infodemic with an aim to reduce its impact on the people’s health.

Learning Objectives

• Understand the concept of infodemic.
• Interpret the effect of an infodemic on an organization’s workforce.
• List a few tactics to effectively manage an infodemic.

*This course references US legislation and statistics.