10.5826/dpc.1304a234
text/xml
2160-9381
3278
en
Rashid Rashid
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Dermatology Practical & Conceptual
Combating Misinformation in Dermatology
Text.Serial.Journal
https://dpcj.org/index.php/dpc
Commentary
2023-10-31
2023-02-22
2023-10-31
2024-01-15
e2023234
Dermatol Pract Concept
Rashid Rashid
2023/10/31
10.5826/dpc.1304a234
e2023234
Mosaic Dermatology, Houston, Texas, USA
2160-9381
en
e2023234
Suarez-Lledo V, Alvarez-Galvez J. Prevalence of Health Misinformation on Social Media: Systematic Review. Journal of Medical Internet Research; 2021.
Combating Misinformation in Dermatology
https://dpcj.org/index.php/dpc/article/download/3278/2336
           Combating Misinformation in Dermatology
               Emelie Elizabeth Nelson1, Troy Austin Black1, Morgan Ansley Rousseau1,
                                     Rashid Mohammed Rashid2


1 University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston John P. and Katherine G. McGovern Medical School, Houston, Texas, USA
2 Mosaic Dermatology, Houston, Texas, USA



Citation: Nelson EE, Black TA, Rousseau MA, Rashid RM. Combating Misinformation in Dermatology. Dermatol Pract Concept.
2023;13(4):e2023234. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5826/dpc.1304a234
Accepted: April 5, 2023; Published: October 2023
Copyright: ©2023 Nelson et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial License (BY-NC-4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/, which permits unrestricted noncommercial use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited.
Funding: None.
Competing Interests: None.
Authorship: All authors have contributed significantly to this publication.
Corresponding Author: Rashid M. Rashid, MD PhD, Mosaic Dermatology, 2211 Norfolk St #405, Houston, TX 77098.
Email: rashidmdphd@gmail.com


Freedom of speech is one of the foundations of democracy.                this phenomenon by collecting healthcare-related social
With the advent of modern technology, we now have the                    media misinformation rates from 69 studies. Within the
                                                                         ­
access to seemingly-limitless information at our fingertips.             studies examined, misinformation rates reached as high as
However, with increased accessibility to information comes               87% of the total content posted on social media [3]. While
susceptibility to misinformation, a phenomenon that poses                information is information, and free speech is a protected
vast implications for the scientific community and general               right, information can also be counterproductive, deceptive,
population.                                                              and used to incite ­emotions, especially when it is viral and
    Misinformation, described in politics as a threat to de-             has algorithmic appeal.
mocracy, is pervasive throughout medicine and can hinder                      How do we handle this information overload and
the delivery of healthcare [1]. Dermatology, in particular,              combat misinformation? We suggest creating a health rat-
has recently been the center of many instances of misinfor-              ing agency that provides a rating to publicized health in-
mation. From assertions that “sunscreen causes cancer” to                formation, s­imilar to the system employed by the Motion
the false claims that tanning and the use of Melanotan are               Pictures ­Association. Ultimately, this rating agency would
“safe”, it is imperative that all are aware of the misinforma-           serve to create a metric that individuals could use to bet-
tion that exists as it has the potential to significantly impact         ter ­understand the quality of information they are accessing.
one wellbeing [2].                                                       Just as the movie industry uses movie ratings: G, PG, PG-13,
    Though the benefit of easily-accessible information is               and R, healthcare-oriented information could be reviewed
significant, not all information is “equal” in quality or ac-            and “rated” for accuracy (Table 1).
curacy. While physicians are formally trained to make use                     We propose that physicians spearhead rating efforts
of databases like PubMed or Ovid, navigating these sites                 within their respective fields. While this represents a labori-
can pose a great challenge to the general public. As such,               ous task, we believe that physicians could be incentivized to
search engines like “Google” become a more appealing,                    participate in review efforts by offering Continuing Medical
user-friendly option. Additionally, with the recent surge in             Education credits for their time. After content (articles/ social
social media users, the opportunity for the spread of misin-             media accounts/ influencer accounts) has been “rated,” a seal
formation is amplified. A 2021 systematic review examined                or emblem from each specialty governing body (American


Review | Dermatol Pract Concept. 2023;13(4):e2023234                                                                                    1
     Table 1. Proposed rating system for medical               major search engines and social media platforms, ultimately
                     literature.                               ­serving to combat misinformation in the field of ­dermatology
                                                               and medicine at large.
      Rating                     Guideline
 E1              Content is backed by substantial
                 evidence-based literature.                    References
 E2              Content is supported by sparse evidence-      1. Roozenbeek J, Schneider CR, Dryhurst S. Susceptibility to mis-
                 based literature.                                information about COVID-19 around the world. R Soc Open
 N               No supporting research.                          Sci. 2020;7(10):201199. DOI: 10.1098/rsos.201199. PMID:
 X               Anecdotal information without                    33204475. PMCID: PMC7657933.
                 supporting research.                          2. O'Connor C, Rafferty S, Murphy M. A qualitative review of
                                                                  misinformation and conspiracy theories in skin cancer. Clin Exp
                                                                  Dermatol. 2022;47(10):1848-1852. DOI: 10.1111/ced.15249.
                                                                  PMID: 35514125. PMCID: PMC9796846.
Academy of Dermatology for Dermatology) could be ap-
                                                               3. Suarez-Lledo V, Alvarez-Galvez J. Prevalence of Health Misinfor-
plied to the content, indicating that the content has been        mation on Social Media: Systematic Review. J Med Internet Res.
subject to expert review and quality control. The simplicity      2021;23(1):e17187. DOI: 10.2196/17187. PMID: 33470931.
of this rating system would enable its implementation across      PMCID: PMC7857950.




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