HIFA Thematic Global Discussion Forum and WHO Infodemic Management News Flash

31 January, 2025

Dear Neil and HIFA colleagues,

A very interesting article today in the WHO Infodemic Management News Flash (Issue #77) mentions that ‘recent research argues that social media functions more like a funhouse mirror where online discussions are dominated by a small but extremely vocal and non-representative minority’. [ https://hq_communityreadinessandresilienceunitcrr.cmail20.com/t/d-e-sjry... ]

This resonates with the importance of the HIFA Thematic Global Discussion Forum with more than 20,000 members who are professionals and policy makers etc. from 180 countries committed to provide and advocate for evidence-based healthcare information globally.

Extracted from the WHO Infodemic Management News Flash, Thursday, 30 January 2024 | Issue #77:

With nearly 5 billion users, and the average user spending about two and a half hours a day online, we know how important social media is to understanding public perceptions, biases, and false beliefs [ https://www.bmj.com/content/385/bmj-2023-075645 ]. Popular podcasters, influencers and creators now wield more influence and have garnered a significant amount of trust from large segments of populations who have coalesced into communities that transcend traditional borders. However, it should also be acknowledged that the online environment provides neither a close nor an accurate representation of the offline world. Recent research argues that social media functions more like a funhouse mirror where online discussions are dominated by a small but extremely vocal and non-representative minority [ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352250X24001313?...

]. And that while 3% of social media accounts are toxic, they produce up to 33% of the content. That is not to understate the power of and influence of digital information ecosystems, but rather to contextually the picture of the world that they give us.

Best wishes

Dr Meena Nathan Cherian, MBBS, MD (Anaesthesia)

(Former WHO Lead Emergency and Essential Surgical Care Program, Geneva, Switzerland).

Director, Global Health New Challenges:online courses, Geneva Foundation for Medical Education & Research (GFMER), Switzerland. www.gfmer.ch/surgery/cancer.htm

Senior Advisor, Global Action, International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG), Switzerland. Permanent Committees - SIOG

Adjunct Prof.The Chinese University of Hong Kong,Shenzhen,China. https://med.cuhk.edu.cn/en/teacher/371

WHO-HIFA Working Group on Essential Health Services,COVID-19,Learning for Quality Health Services; mHEALTH-INNOVATE.www.hifa.org

Geneva, Switzerland. +41 763837253(m); cherianm15@gmail.com

HIFA profile: Dr Meena Nathan Cherian was a professor of anaesthesiology from Christian Medical College Hospital, Vellore, India. She trained, worked, and taught in several countries, USA (Johns Hopkins Hospital), Southeast Asia and Africa. She worked at the World Health Organization Headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland, as the Emergency and Essential Surgical Care Program Lead where she created the ‘surgical care’ program resulting in the first World Health Assembly Resolution on ‘Emergency and Essential Surgical Care and Anaesthesia in the context of Universal Health Coverage’. Currently she works as the Director, Global Health New Challenges program, Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research, Geneva, Switzerland; Adjunct Prof. The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China; Senior Advisor, Global Action, International Society of Geriatric Oncology, Switzerland; she is a Member of the HIFA Steering Group; HIFA Partnerships and Projects Working Group; and HIFA mHEALTH-INNOVATE Working Group. https://www.hifa.org/support/members/meena cherianm15 AT gmail.com