Fault Lines

Misinformation is an urgent societal concern that affects us all. Science and health misinformation exposes us to harms both personal and collective. On an individual level, it can leave us vulnerable to baseless fears, harm from preventable diseases, and exploitation by those who promote misinformation for profit or power. On a collective level, it erodes trust, fosters hate, undermines social cohesion, and diminishes our capacity for collective action. Misinformation damages social cohesion and collective action by undermining democratic discourse and distorting our understanding of the potential consequences of both our personal choices and policy options.

Addressing misinformation is a complex, multidimensional, and inevitably controversial undertaking because it raises fundamental questions about how we communicate, build relationships, and understand the world, as well as questions about our personal values and identity. Given the importance of this issue, it is imperative that we invest in understanding the sources and consequences of misinformation, and the strategies being used to combat it and reduce its harmful impacts.

Report findings

There is robust evidence supporting the contribution of science and health misinformation to the following individual and collective impacts:

• Illness, poisoning, and death from unsafe health interventions and products
• Illness and death from communicable and vaccine-preventable diseases
• Money wasted on disproven products and services
• Susceptibility to further and potentially more insidious forms of misinformation
• Increased healthcare and societal costs due to vaccine-preventable diseases
• Inaction or delayed public policy action

Misinformation contributes to a lack of adherence to public health measures and to vaccine hesitancy, which can result in vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks, increased healthcare costs, and elevated risk to the health and well-being of vulnerable populations. Misinformation also amplifies social divisions, which have resulted in overt conflict and violence, often directed at racialized communities. Furthermore, the consequences of science and health misinformation are not borne equally — for instance, negative health impacts during the COVID-19 pandemic have been found to disproportionately affect the well-being of racialized and other underserved communities, exacerbating existing inequalities.

Modelling COVID-19 Misinformation in Canada

Misinformation about COVID-19 is estimated to have cost the Canadian healthcare system at least $300 million in hospital and ICU visits between March 1 and November 30, 2021. This doesn’t include the cost of outpatient medication, physician compensation, or long COVID. Model outcomes also do not include broader societal costs, such as delayed elective surgeries, social unrest, moral injury to healthcare workers, and the uneven distribution of harms borne by communities.