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PUBH 1500: Public Health, Nutrition & Sustainability

Resources and information relevant to the topics discussed in PUBH 1910.

Fact Checking Fake Health & Medical News on the Internet

SIFT method for evaluating resources

SIFT is a series of actions you can take to determine the validity and reliability of claims and sources on the web.

The SIFT method, or strategy, is quick and simple and can be applied to various kinds of online content: news articles, scholarly articles, social media posts, videos, images, etc.

Each letter in SIFT corresponds to one of the Four Moves:

A graphic explaining the SIFT Method: The S stands for STOP, the I stands for Investigate the Source, the F stands for find other coverage and the T stands for trace claim quotes and media back to their original context.

Stop

Investigate the source

Find better coverage

Trace claims, quotes and media to the original context

 

Find more details on the Four Moves from Mike Caulfield's SIFT (Four Moves), which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

SIFT Video Tutorials

STOP. Ask yourself whether you know the website or source of information and the reputation of both the claim and the website. If you feel yourself getting overwhelmed in your fact-checking efforts, STOP and take a second to remember your purpose.

Finding out the expertise and agenda of the source is crucial to your interpretation of what they say.

Search news databases for relevant stories. Use known fact-checking sites. Use reverse image searching to find relevant sources on an image.

Much of what we find on the internet has been stripped of context. In these cases, we’ll have you trace the claim, quote, or media back to the source, so you can see it in its original context and get a sense if the version you saw was accurately presented.

Five Quick Questions

If you’re visiting an online health site for the first time or downloading a new app, ask these five questions:

  1. Who runs or created the site or app? Can you trust them?
  2. What is the site or app promising or offering? Do its claims seem too good to be true?
  3. When was its information written or reviewed? Is it up-to-date?
  4. Where does the information come from? Is it based on scientific research?
  5. Why does the site or app exist? Is it selling something?

Source: Finding and Evaluating Online Resources  (National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health)

Predatory Journals - Fake Science

There Are Now 8,000 Fake Science ‘Journals’ Worldwide, Researchers Say

  • Falsely claiming to provide peer review and meaningful editorial oversight of submissions
  • Lying about affiliations with prestigious scholarly/scientific organizations
  • Claiming affiliation with a non-existent organization
  • Naming reputable scholars to editorial boards without their permission (and refusing to remove them)
  • Falsely claiming to have a high Journal Impact Factor
  • Hiding information about APCs until after the author has completed submission
  • Falsely claiming to be included in prestigious indexes

Sources to Evaluate Health Information