The World Health Organization (WHO) is developing activities to support the country pandemic preparedness and to mitigate the current COVID-19 pandemic which is accompanied by an infodemic. There is an urgent need to address the infodemic accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic, as most countries are battling both. As the world seeks to accelerate the development of medical countermeasures including treatments and safe, effective vaccines, as well as introduced public health measures, misinformation about both has been spreading and growing.
In order to successfully address and mitigate the current infodemic and promote more effective future response, conference participants of the WHO 1st infodemiology conference recently contributed to a draft public health research agenda that cuts across many fields of specialization. From physics to law to behavioral science to epidemiology to user experience and design—it is clear that an infodemic manager would need a wider array of skills and expertise to successfully address infodemics that go beyond traditional boundaries of epidemiology, risk communication and community engagement and digital media.
WHO and partners invite applications from experienced professionals from the fields of epidemiology, risk communication, health service delivery/health care workers, digital health, policy making (in health and intersectoral), who are responding to the current COVID-19 and overlapping infodemics at country level.
Fast Facts
- Deadline to apply: 18 October 2020, 18:00 CET
- Working language of the training is English and trainees must have working proficiency in English. Interpretation into French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and Portuguese will be provided to support discussions with guest speakers.
- Time commitment of trainees: 24 hours of lectures/discussions over the course of 3-27 November 2020 (10 sessions, 2-3 hours each)
- Training objectives: Build a curriculum and apply it in delivering a training of the 1st cohort of cross-disciplinary infodemic managers; build up the skills of health authority staff in infodemic management; offer opportunity for UN staff to learn about infodemic management; become the basis for creating future infodemic training facility training modules.