The W.H.O. has identified vaccine hesitancy as one of the greatest threats to global health. Regardless of country, increased susceptibility to false claims about health significantly lowers vaccination rates and risks the health of the public. The medical community is currently ill equipped to counter mis/disinformation with their own engaging, modern content. As anti-vax leaders gain positions of power across the globe, we risk our ability to respond to future pandemics and limit their health impact.

To address this challenge, we propose the creation of a coalition called “ViralTruth” that will create engaging, viral content across social media to educate audiences about health misinformation. Governments and nonprofits do have campaigns to address misinformation, but those communications do not regularly reach large audiences. ViralTruth campaigns will aim to debunk and pre-bunk misinformation, using the same tactics that make disinformation go viral. To reach key audiences, the coalition will partner with the medical community, influencers, creatives, and local leaders that audiences we’re targeting have been proven to trust most.

This solution has low technology cost to implement with the potential to quickly reach hundreds of millions of people around the world while supporting communicators and community leaders. Our ideal impact is to increase rates of vaccination and innoculate against generalized healthcare misinformation, not just vaccine skepticism. By creating a centralized and modern approach to prebunking and debunking medical misinformation, we can guide strategy at the local and global level. Local institutions can then take this content and focus on how to target their communities, instead of having to design it themselves. This modernized approach revitalizes how health science communication is designed and delivered to the public. Instead of dated infographics and overly technical content, we can create engaging, memetic information that improves our collective health and well-being.