On behalf of the IFLA Health and Biosciences Section (HBS), you are invited to join us on 3 March 2022 for an international panel presentation and idea exchange! The main goal of the webinar is to explore strategies for preparing an information workforce to address health misinformation. Through the perspectives of several faculty members, a range of student-focused educational strategies will be explored to help build a workforce uniquely prepared to combat the proliferation of health misinformation. Panelists will share examples of health misinformation, ideas for student assignments, various tools for fact-checking, and other useful resources. The presentations will be followed by an open forum for attendees to ask questions and exchange ideas.

The event is free, but registration is required.

Speakers and panelists

Dr. Deborah Charbonneau is an Associate Professor in the School of Information Sciences at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, USA. Deborah completed her PhD in Sociology at Wayne State University, and she holds a Master of Library Science degree from the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include health literacy, digital health, privacy, and accessibility issues. She currently teaches courses in health informatics, information policy, research methods, and library management and leadership. 

Dr. Ari Haasio, is a Principal Lecturer at the Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences, Finland. His research areas include hikikomori phenomenon, hate speech, information behaviour and criminal activities on the dark web. He currently teaches information retrieval and information seeking in everyday life situations.

Dr. Octavia Madge is an Associate Professor and PhD supervisor in information and communication sciences at the University of Bucharest and she also works as a surgeon for her second specialty at the Oncology Institute Bucharest, Romania. She completed a PhD in knowledge management at the University of Bucharest and a PhD in surgery at the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy Bucharest. She teaches courses in knowledge management, information users, information science, and information behaviour. Her current research interests include communication in healthcare and health information behaviour. 

Dr. Diane Pennington, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland is Senior Lecturer in Information Science and the Course Director for the MSc/PgDip in Information and Library Studies in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Strathclyde. She is a member of the Strathclyde iSchool Research Group, in which she leads the Information Engagement research area and belongs to the Interactive Information Retrieval research area. She also belongs to the Digital Health and Wellness Research Group. She holds an MS and a PhD in information science from the School of Library and Information Sciences (now the College of Information) at the University of North Texas and has earned a PGDip in Academic Practice from the University of Strathclyde.

Dr. Saeideh Valizadeh-Haghi is an Assistant Professor in the School of Allied Medical Sciences at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Saeideh completed her PhD in Health Information Management at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences and she holds a Master of Library Science from Azad University. Her research areas include online health information credibility, ehealth literacy, digital health and health information seeking behavior. She currently teaches courses in health information databases, information resources management, medical reference databases, information systems, and library management and leadership. 

Moderator

Bethany S. McGowan, Associate Professor, Libraries and School of Information Studies, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, US