The project has built a partnership with vulnerable communities in Brazil to learn how they get important health information, and explore with them how best to build skills that help them identify misinformation (‘fake news’) during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

We are working together with local community leaders to train local ethnographers, critical thinkers, and empower community members to work together and be able to think more critically themselves.

One of the key aims behind helping community groups to improve their own critical thinking skills is to enable them to distinguish fake news from genuine news and to better protect themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic has an associated ‘infodemic’. People are bombarded with information, much of it harmful ‘fake news’ about the virus and how best to avoid becoming infected that’s derived from social media and rumours.

There is a real concern that such misinformation is so prevalent that health information from reliable sources can be missed, or simply not believed. This means that COVID-19-related fake news, unfounded conspiracy theories and false rumours are a real danger to public health.

Critical thinking skills are a key weapon in the fight against such misinformation, and for this reason the project aims to enable community members, with appropriate guidance and support, to teach others in the community how to use and build up such skills.

We are studying and working with communities at four different locations in and around Goiânia, Brazil:

• 2 favelas: Villa Lobo (more rural) and Buena Vista (more urban)
• 1 garbage pickers cooperative: Cooper Rama
• 1 homeless shelter: Tio Cleobaldo