The Landscape of Health Misinformation

A policy toolkit developed in partnership with the Rhode Island Public Health Association (RIPHA) as part of Brown's Watson School Master of Public Affairs program, with Sarah Carpenter, MD. The project applies a public-health prevention framework- tertiary, secondary, primary, and primordial- to the spread of health misinformation, tracing the problem from historical outbreaks like Ebola and Zika through the COVID-19 infodemic to the emerging risk of AI-generated health disinformation.

The work includes two Rhode Island-specific case studies (disinformation around the Reproductive Health Act and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy), a review of current state legislation on AI use in healthcare, and concrete advocacy recommendations, including support for a Rhode Island media literacy curriculum mandate and legislative oversight of AI in insurance claims processing.

My contributions: researched Rhode Island's specific health misinformation landscape during the project's early scoping phase; authored the primordial prevention section, focusing on building institutional trust through policy opposing AI influence on health decision-making, and researched state legislation on AI use in healthcare across multiple states; co-authored the printed one-pager for the RIPHA symposium.