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Tackling Rumors and Understanding & Strengthening Trust (TRUST) in Public Health

Practical Playbook for Addressing Health Rumors: a helpful tool for practitioners

The Practical Playbook for Addressing Health Rumors takes a hands-on approach to help public health communicators recognize and respond to health-related rumors and misinformation. It provides detailed tools, checklists, templates, and examples written in plain language to support users in:

Practical playbook for addressing health misinformation, version 2

preparing for health-related rumors
deciding when to act to address rumors
determining which actions to take to address misinformation
developing relevant and timely messaging, and
gathering feedback about those messages.

Download the Playbook

The playbook includes several supplementary resources that can be downloaded and tailored:

A 2-page overview of the Practical Playbook (PDF)
Appendix A: Checklist to Build Trust, Improve Public Health Communication, and Anticipate Rumors During Public Health Emergencies
Appendix B: Audience Persona Characterization Tool (DOCX)
Appendix C: Worksheet for Developing Messages to Counter Misinformation (DOCX)
Appendix D: Message Framing Strategies and Templates (DOCX)
Decision making worksheet (DOCX)

Have you implemented the Practical Playbook in your setting?

We welcome your feedback! We also can train members of your organization on using the Playbook.

For feedback and inquiries, please email centerhealthsecurity@jhu.edu.