Communicating Research in an Era of Misinformation

Last year, AJPH hit a milestone. The article by Broniatowski et al., “Weaponized Health Communication: Twitter Bots and Russian Trolls Amplify the Vaccine Debate” (bit.ly/2TnBA8f), published in the October issue was the 18th—among millions—most read academic article of 2018, according to Altmetric (bit.ly/2QKpR1k). To the American Public Health Association communications team, this was no surprise. When reading the article before publication, we knew it had popular appeal and scientific clout. It also fed into a hotly trending political narrative and addressed a timely public health challenge. It made a great news story. Broad interest from the media ensured that the public heard about its findings