The COVID‐19 Pandemic's Impact on Credibility of Health Sources Among Undergraduate Students

Abstract

The following poster reports the preliminary results of a comparison between a 2017 survey on health information and the same survey administered in 2023. The primary research question is: How did the COVID‐19 pandemic impact undergraduate students' judgement of credibility in health information sources? Recent research has shown that student health information seeking has changed around the COVID‐19 pandemic. However, the research has not noted whether the pandemic has had a lasting impact on credibility of sources during health information seeking at the presumptive tail end of the pandemic in 2023. The original study in 2017 surveyed the undergraduate population of McGill University. The same survey was readministered in 2023, with COVID‐19 specific questions added. The preliminary analysis suggests that the COVID‐19 pandemic impacted students' judgement of credibility in health information sources. There were negative changes in the perceived credibility of family/friends, well‐known websites, wiki, blogs/forums, and social media for both everyday life health and COVID‐19 information from 2017 to 2023. Conversely, government/university, scholarly books/journals, and TV/radio all saw increases in perceived credibility for both everyday life health and COVID‐19 information.