Global health crises are also information crises: A call to action

Bo Xie; Daqing He; Tim Mercer; Youfa Wang; Dan Wu; Kenneth R Fleischmann; Yan Zhang; Linda H Yoder; Keri K Stephens; Michael Mackert; Min Kyung Lee

doi:10.1002/asi.24357

Global health crises are also information crises: A call to action

J Assoc Inf Sci Technol. 2020 Dec;71(12):1419-1423. doi: 10.1002/asi.24357. Epub 2020 Mar 13.

Authors

Bo Xie^{1

2}, Daqing He³, Tim Mercer^{4

5}, Youfa Wang^{6

7

8}, Dan Wu⁹, Kenneth R Fleischmann², Yan Zhang², Linda H Yoder¹, Keri K Stephens¹⁰, Michael Mackert^{4

11

12}, Min Kyung Lee²

Affiliations

¹ School of Nursing The University of Texas at Austin Austin Texas USA.
² School of Information The University of Texas at Austin Austin Texas USA.
³ Department of Informatics and Networked Systems, School of Computing and Information University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh Pennsylvania USA.
⁴ Department of Population Health, Dell Medical School The University of Texas at Austin Austin Texas USA.
⁵ Department of Internal Medicine, Dell Medical School The University of Texas at Austin Austin Texas USA.
⁶ Global Health Institute Xi'an Jiaotong University Health Science Center Xi'an China.
⁷ School of Public Health Xi'an Jiaotong University Health Science Center Xi'an China.
⁸ Department of Nutrition and Health Science, College of Health, Fisher Institute of Health and Well-Being Ball State University Muncie Indiana USA.
⁹ School of Information Management Wuhan University Wuhan China.
¹⁰ Department of Communication Studies, Moody College of Communication The University of Texas at Austin Austin Texas USA.
¹¹ Center for Health Communication, Moody College of Communication The University of Texas at Austin Austin Texas USA.
¹² Stan Richards School of Advertising and Public Relations, Moody College of Communication The University of Texas at Austin Austin Texas USA.

Abstract

In this opinion paper, we argue that global health crises are also information crises. Using as an example the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, we (a) examine challenges associated with what we term "global information crises"; (b) recommend changes needed for the field of information science to play a leading role in such crises; and (c) propose actionable items for short- and long-term research, education, and practice in information science.