Biden admin spending $1M to research how ‘misinformation’ affects confidence in vaccines

The Biden administration is handing out $1 million in grant funding for research into how “vaccine misinformation” found on social media can affect people’s confidence in vaccines.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced the grant opportunity, “Developing a Public Health Tool to Predict the Virality of Vaccine Misinformation Narratives,” on Thursday and will send the funds to a single applicant next year. The awardee will use the funds to develop a forecasting model that aims to identify potential misinformation on vaccines and how it will affect people as it spreads on social media.

“The purpose of this Notice of Funding Opportunity is to support research to develop a predictive forecasting model that identifies new or reemerging misinformation narratives that are likely to disseminate widely and have a high potential for impact on vaccine confidence,” the grant description said. “The information from this model will then be used to develop a tool that public health agencies could use to predict misinformation trends in the populations served.”

“Finally, the researchers will evaluate the tool’s predictive capabilities on both future social media misinformation narratives and real-world events,” it said. – READ MORE