Brief Outline of the Overall Workshop:
The reverberations of the pandemic, magnified by the accompanied infodemic, was and remains multifaceted for both the public, and public health staff. We have learned from this crisis, the fragility and the vulnerability the public are to misinformation, affecting health outcomes, and confidence and trust with public health programs. In addition, all health care staff struggle(d) with extreme stress, fatigue, and burnout. In September 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) responded by publishing a policy brief calling for more training opportunities in the management of health infodemics. Unfortunately, and to date, public health workers have not benefited widely. While Governments and public health agencies wrestle and are continually challenged with the onslaught of the information, ever changing, from a multitude of trusted and untrusted sources facilitated by global interconnectivity and digitization, societally we are becoming more divided and suspicious of once trusted organisations and sources of information. It has become imperative to act with a new allied organisation with an objective to facilitate Infodemic training for professionals. With additional organisation of these trained professionals we can then rebuild/strengthen trust in public health interventions. The Society for Infodemic Management is poised to develop and lead opportunities to train and organise public health professionals.

Specific AIMS/Objectives and Component Parts:
Education and training modules are an efficient strategy for building capacity and maintaining competencies in the public health workforce and have shown effective by the WHO at delivering infodemic management curricula to a wide audience. Despite their effectiveness, the integration of infodemic management education and training programs into public health systems has not occurred in a systematic and pedagogical method. Teaching how to use infodemic management to the public health workers is an opportunity to overcome public health issues at the global level. The objectives of this workshop are to: 1) describe the importance of infodemic management education and training for public health staff; 2) review professional competencies and public health policies required for broad acceptance of infodemic management certification; and 3) discuss the activities of the Society for Infodemic Management (SIM), an international non-governmental organization, in facilitating the integration of infodemic management education, training into public health practice. Workshop moderator: Craig Thompson 1st presenter: Dilek Aslan (15 minutes) 2nd presenter: Lucie Marisa Bucci (10 minutes) 3rd presenter: Craig Thompson (10 minutes) 4th presenter: Neville Calleja (10 minutes) Q and A (15 minutes) - Speakers will ask the audience a series of questions which the panel will then discuss the answers. Videos and other tools will be shown, and the audience will be asked for feedback and their needs for broad integration.

Key Questions that the Workshop Will Address:
What are the core competencies of infodemic management?Is infodemic management needed in your country’s public health system?How to integrate infodemic management education and training into existing public health systems?How will the SIM address the ‘science of infodemic management’?