Phase II: Global principles for identifying credible sources of health information on social media

The World Health Organization (WHO) is dedicated to promoting science-based content, fighting misinformation, gaining user insights and developing new channels and tools to address the ongoing pandemic and support international health efforts. As part of this effort, WHO is working with the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS) and the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) on Phase II of a project on identifying credible sources of health information on social media.

This phase of the project has produced a comprehensive framework to assist social and digital media companies in identifying and validating a wider set of reliable health sources. The framework goes beyond those entities that have already undergone standardized vetting processes and places emphasis on adapting existing principles and attributes to accommodate for-profit entities and individuals.

Building on the foundation laid out by the National Academy of Medicine’s discussion paper, WHO convened a meeting of experts from various interdisciplinary fields on 15 December 2021 to establish high-level principles for identifying credible sources of health information online, globally. In 2022, WHO published a final report of the online consultation meeting, outlining global principles for identifying credible sources of health information online. The report specifically addressed non-profit sources of health information that do not have standardized evaluation processes, as well as non-profit and government sources that already use standardized methods for evaluating their credibility.

To further broaden the principles for a wider range  of content producers, WHO, in collaboration with CMSS and NAM, convened a global consultation meeting in 2022. The objective was to adapt the principles for for-profit entities and individuals.

For this phase, WHO, CMSS and NAM assembled a global, interdisciplinary advisory committee of 25 experts, including authors of the Phase 1 NAM paper, WHO representatives, and additional experts capable of creating a globally relevant, expanded set of principles, attributes, and definitions. The outcome was a Discussion Paper titled "Identifying Credible Sources of Health Information in Social Media: Phase 2—Considerations for Non-Accredited Nonprofit Organizations, For-Profit Entities, and Individual Sources", published in NAM Perspectives on 23 May 2023.

The adapted principles and attributes will be used to assess the source credibility of the expanded group of potential information sources. The results of this phase will also help us understand the benefits of using objective assessments to evaluate the credibility of sources, both for organizations that provide scientific oversight and for individual content creators.