A health media literacy intervention increases skepticism of both inaccurate and accurate cancer news among U.S. adults

Inaccurate cancer news can have adverse effects on patients, their families, and the population in general. One potential way to minimize these effects is through media literacy training --- ideally, training tailored specifically to the evaluation of health-related media coverage. We test whether an abbreviated version of a health-focused media literacy intervention designed by a community organization improves accuracy discernment or sharing discernment for a series of accurate and inaccurate cancer news headlines, and also examine how these outcomes compare to the effects of a standard media literacy training intervention. We employ a survey experiment conducted using a nationally representative sample of Americans (N = 1,200). Respondents were assigned to either a health-focused media literacy intervention, a previously-tested generic media literacy intervention, or the control. They were also randomly assigned to rate either their perceived accuracy of headlines or their sharing intentions. We find that the health-focused media literacy intervention increased skepticism of both inaccurate (a 5.6% decrease in endorsement, 95% CI [0.1%, 10.7%]) and accurate (a 7.6% decrease, 95% CI [2.4%, 12.8%]) news headlines, and accordingly did not improve discernment between the two. The health media literacy intervention also did not significantly improve sharing discernment. Meanwhile, the standard media literacy intervention had little effect on perceived accuracy outcomes, but did significantly improve sharing discernment. These results suggest further intervention development and refinement is needed before scaling up similarly targeted health news and information literacy tools, particularly focusing on building trust in legitimate sources and accurate information content.