Endorsement of COVID-19 misinformation among criminal legal involved individuals in the United States: Prevalence and relationship with information sources

• Published in: PloS one 2024-01, Vol.19 (1), p.e0296752-e0296752
• Main Authors: Zhao, Xiaoquan, Hingle, Aayushi, Shaw, Cameron C, Murphy, Amy, Riddick, Breonna R, Davidson Mhonde, Rochelle R, Taylor, Bruce G, Lamuda, Phoebe A, Pollack, Harold A, Schneider, John A, Taxman, Faye S
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Access to information; Adult; Chronic illnesses; COVID-19; COVID-19 - epidemiology; COVID-19 vaccines; Criminals; Epidemics; Evaluation; False information; Health aspects; Health care; Health disparities; Humans; Immunization; Imprisonment; Information Sources; Marginalized groups; Mental disorders; Mental health; Minority & ethnic groups; Narcotics; Pandemics; Parole & probation; Population studies; Prevalence; Public health; Public health administration; Sociodemographics; Socioeconomic factors; Surveys; United States - epidemiology
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0296752

Criminal legal system involvement (CLI) is a critical social determinant of health that lies at the intersection of multiple sources of health disparities. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates many of these disparities, and specific vulnerabilities faced by the CLI population. This study investigated the prevalence of COVID-19-related misinformation, as well as its relationship with COVID-19 information sources used among Americans experiencing CLI. A nationally representative sample of American adults aged 18+ (N = 1,161), including a subsample of CLI individuals (n = 168), were surveyed in February-March 2021. On a 10-item test, CLI participants endorsed a greater number of misinformation statements (M = 1.88 vs. 1.27) than non-CLI participants, p < .001. CLI participants reported less use of government and scientific sources (p = .017) and less use of personal sources (p = .003) for COVID-19 information than non-CLI participants. Poisson models showed that use of government and scientific sources was negatively associated with misinformation endorsement for non-CLI participants (IRR = .841, p < .001), but not for CLI participants (IRR = .957, p = .619). These findings suggest that building and leveraging trust in important information sources are critical to the containment and mitigation of COVID-19-related misinformation in the CLI population.