WHO is releasing an innovative new training program on OpenWHO, the Infodemic the Infodemic Management Course Series.
What is an infodemic? An infodemic is an overflow of information of varying quality that surges across digital and physical environments during an acute public health event. This modern and complex phenomenon will now accompany all acute health events.
Many countries have built up infodemic management capacities during the COVID-19 pandemic and applied it to monitoring and addressing infodemic harms related to other outbreaks more recently, including as mpox, Marburg, Ebola and cholera. However, the appetite to gain new skills for infodemic management continues to grow.
The first course—Infodemic management 101—was published on OpenWHO in 2021, and since then, over 22,000 people have taken it. We have learned so much since then, and thus, have expanded the courses available.
What do these new infodemic management courses include? The Infodemic Management OpenWHO course series provides an overview of the strategies, good practices, methods and tools that infodemic managers and all interested health workers can use in the field to prevent, prepare for and respond to this phenomenon. These courses are designed to provide concrete approaches and tools and develop skills that are most requested by health authorities in a more widely accessible format. These courses are suitable for anyone with a background or interest in public health and emergency preparedness and response.
The OpenWHO infodemic OpenWHO infodemic management channel channel has added two new courses which will be available in multiple languages:
- Infodemic management 101 (EN, FR, AR)
- Infodemic management: developing an infodemic insights report (EN, FR, ES)
- Infodemic management: addressing health misinformation (EN, FR, ES)
We encourage you to take the courses (and others that will be published by the end of the year) and provide a reflection of the experience and how this can support your public health work through your favorite social media channels (tag us with #infodemiccourse).
The OpenWHO infodemic management channel is part of a broader learning and training agenda by the Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention in building resilience to health misinformation and addressing the infodemic in context of health emergencies, informed by the WHO competency framework for building a health workforce to respond to infodemics. For further information about more in-depth and immersive trainings and simulations that are freely available for teaching and capacity building for health, email [email protected].
For other capacity building opportunities, collaboration, research and job postings related to infodemic management, subscribe to the WHO Infodemic Management Newsflash.