In the News: Science Communication Course on Fighting Misinformation

In the News: Science Communication Course on Fighting Misinformation

In the News: Science Communication Course on Fighting Misinformation
Interprofessionals in health care learned how to fight misinformation in a special accelerated science communication course for advanced students in medicine, nursing, and pharmacy. 
The Institute for Translational Medicine (ITM) and The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine collaborated with colleagues across fields to teach health care professionals how to harness the power of storytelling and infographics to combat misinformation and communicate with the general public. 
“When we think about the future and with the reemergence of things like polio, we need to make sure we’re teaching tomorrow’s health professionals how to tackle things in way that reaches the public where they’re at,” said Vinny Arora, MD, ITM investigator, course co-instructor, and Dean for Medical Education at the Pritzker School of Medicine, in The Chicago Tribune story
Almost 90 percent of Americans lack the literacy needed to navigate the health care system, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Vinny and Sara

Vinny Arora & Sara Serritella

“We’re trying to essentially make it a fair fight,” said Sara Serritella, Director of Communications for the Institute for Translational Medicine and co-instructor of the course, in The Chicago Tribune story . “As we saw during the pandemic,this whole crisis of having to communicate science in a way that builds trust can literally be life or death.”

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded the team an Innovation Grant to launch the course. This work was also fueled by the National Institutes of Health National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program that supports the ITM.

This project was supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through Grant Number 5UL1TR002389-05 that funds the Institute for Translational Medicine (ITM). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

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