Geospatial Correlation Between COVID-19 Health Misinformation and Poisoning with Household Cleaners in the Greater Boston Area
Abstract
Objective
To determine the relationship between health misinformation on social media and adverse health outcomes.
Methods
We analyzed 16,729 calls to the Regional Center for Poison Control and Prevention serving Massachusetts and Rhode Island (MARI PCC) and 25,231 tweets discussing treating COVID-19 with house cleaners.
Results
Half of the spikes in calls to MARI PCC about exposures to cleaners were preceded 2–3 days earlier by tweets advocating ingesting or insufflating bleach to cure COVID-19. The relationship was only statistically significant for tweets in the Greater Boston Area and calls to MARI PCC. [Results of network analysis].
Conclusions
Health misinformation on social media had a spatiotemporally specific relationship with increased calls to Poison Control and referrals to hospitals for cleaner ingestions. The spatiotemporal specificity of our results strengthens our conviction that the increased calls were driven in part by health misinformation on social media.
Public Health Implications
Health misinformation can directly lead to secondary harm. Thematically targeted messages at specific loci in the social network may stem this harm.
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