Originally published in the Hideaway Lake News on May 1, 2020
We have been bombarded by health news for months, fueling fear in some of us and denial in others, both of which can be dangerous. Headlines like those below are meant to simply catch our attention, and most of us will read just those, the headlines.
“Treatment for coronavirus virus found!”, “Grim news about treatment for coronavirus“.
Coronavirus vaccine will be ready this summer!”, “We will never find a vaccine for coronavirus”.
“Coronavirus is a hoax!”, “Coronavirus will kill us all!”…
It is impossible to know what to believe by just reading the headlines.
Here are some tips to make sure that you are getting the whole truth:
Read beyond the headlines!
Do not form an opinion before you read the entire article. Preferably read multiple articles on the same issue from different news sources to make up your own mind. Do not get all your news from one source, there will always be bias.
Determine whether the headline is a fact or an opinion.
If it is a fact, then try to find the source of this fact. Health facts should come either from established health organizations like the CDC or from peer reviewed medical and scientific journals like the New England Journal of Medicine or the Lancet. If the headline is an opinion, then find out something about the author to establish their credibility. Do they have the knowledge and experience to intelligently comment on the issue at hand?
Be extremely wary of “facts” propagated via social media.
Fake news and memes are rampant on social media. Before you believe something you read, type the headline or some key phrases into a website like snopes.com, whose sole purpose is to research the truth of information being shared on social media outlets.
Remember that headlines can be manipulated to play with your emotions.
One headline may read “Coronavirus deaths in children have quadrupled in the last three months.” Sounds ominous does it not? We were manipulated into alarm even though the truth may be that just one child died in the first month, and in the three months since, four total children died. It is true that the deaths quadrupled, but the headline no longer has the same effect on your psyche as it first did. Not only can such headlines cause panic, some can exaggerate positive news as well. For example, “Risk of toenail cancer reduced by 50% with new procedure!” – wow, that sounds great, but not when you get the whole story that while you can die from it, toenail cancer is very rare, so a 50% reduction is really not that momentous, especially if the procedure involves preventatively amputating your toe! These are of course extreme examples where the manipulation is very obvious, but often it is more subtle and you must be prepared to do some digging to learn whether the news is actually meaningful for your own health.
So the next time you come across a sensational health news headline, take a step back and work a little harder to get at the real truth, you will be able to care for yourself so much better.
Wishing you good health – physical, mental and emotional!