THE Department of Health (DoH) launched on Monday Healthy Pilipinas, a website that fights the spread of mis- and disinformation by providing accurate and easy-to-understand health information to the general public.
“Our job is to make sure that Filipinos have enough information about health,” said Beverly Lorraine C. Ho, director of the DoH’s Health Promotion Bureau. “We’re launching the website to provide accurate information, especially now when misinformation is rampant online.”
The website contains a list of various diseases, their symptoms and treatments, and healthy habits that can combat them. It also has updates on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and its vaccines.
In contrast to the DoH’s main website — which, based on public feedback, is “too serious and scientific” — Healthy Pilipinas provides health information in plain language.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has renewed the desire of our people to get more information about this health threat,” said Teodoro B. Padilla, executive director of the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP). “Thanks to the technology that we have today, people are able to receive and retrieve information and be part of the discourse at an unprecedented time.”
Aside from PHAP, Healthy Pilipinas is supported by the United States Agency for International Development and the rest of the public health community, which includes specialty societies, medical institutions, and civil society organizations.
DoH is calling for more of these groups to contribute information on diseases, symptoms, treatments, and medicines.
The website also contains educational resources, tools, and playbooks on managing healthy environments, for the use of schools, workplaces, local government units, and other establishments in the various industries and sectors.
‘INFODEMIC,’ A SERIOUS THREAT
Defined as the rapid spread of both accurate and inaccurate information, the ongoing “infodemic” is a real danger to the general public, according to Mr. Padilla.
“While the spread of factual information can save lives, the proliferation of false and/or inaccurate information is a serious threat to people’s lives and to public health,” he said. “This is why we’ve joined DoH in its campaign to promote the use of verified medical facts to empower people to make health decisions based on accurate information.”
Medical anthropologist Dr. Paul Gideon D. Lasco added that the campaign puts importance on two-way communication by getting feedback on what people need and understanding their health-seeking behaviors.
“We have to be critical of the info spreading online and also listen to know what people search for,” he explained. “For example, Filipinos tend to search things they’re hesitant to talk about, like STDs [sexually transmitted diseases] and pregnancy.”
The health experts at the launch also assured that Healthy Pilipinas will provide offline materials that mirror the contents of the website, so that health information will also reach Filipinos that have no internet access.
In addition to English and Tagalog, the site will soon be available in Cebuano as well. — Brontë H. Lacsamana