key: cord-1043604-nn9t4at1
authors: Paakkari, Leena; Okan, Orkan; Torppa, Minna
title: “Missed” Information: A Moral Failing that Erodes Efforts to Tackle the COVID-19 Pandemic
date: 2022-01-14
journal: Int J Public Health
DOI: 10.3389/ijph.2021.1604667
sha: f4b9963c4c363a4e0bb9f15a87021c401e2d5954
doc_id: 1043604
cord_uid: nn9t4at1

nan

reading difficulties are strongly associated with school dropout, and with lower educational status [6] . These factors pose a strong risk that individuals will miss important information from trustworthy sources, and will be vulnerable to the harmful effects of false information.

Reading difficulties affect hundreds of millions of people globally. Even when educational systems are fully in place, reading disability is the most common reason for special education programs, affecting 5-10% of people [7] . With regard to reading comprehension skills more broadly, the numbers are even higher. According to the PISA study [8] , more than 20% of 15-year-olds do not reach the baseline reading level required in everyday live and secondary education. During the COVID-19 pandemic, an additional burden has resulted from school closures. These have had a particularly harmful impact on students with reading disabilities, who often need more support both to learn and to engage with learning. It is likely that due to school closures "the pandemic will push just under 100 million children below the proficiency threshold" in reading skills, in addition to the 483 million children already below the threshold [9] . When people with reading difficulties are added to persons who have other cognitive impairments, who do not receive information in their own language, who lack opportunities for schooling (e.g., due to school closures), and who are illiterate (incl., digitally illiterate), missed information can be seen as a matter of concern to over a billion people.

To secure access to valid information, the development of reading proficiency among adolescents and adults via education systems is not enough. It also requires a willingness to share institutional power over knowledge and knowing, and the creation of user-friendly information environments to meet the differing needs of individuals. Finally, especially in times of infodemic and pandemic, it is imperative to pay particular attention to the digital dimension, including both accessibility and literacy in the medium, and goes beyond purely technical solutions, constituting "a matter of political will and of moral obligation" [10] . Because it could be avoided, missed information indicates a moral failing on the part of society, eroding public health efforts to combat pandemics now and in the future.

Call for Action: Managing the Infodemic

Defining Misinformation, Disinformation and Malinformation: An Urgent Need for Clarity during the COVID-19

Building Mental Models from Multiple Texts: How Readers Construct Coherence from Inconsistent Sources

Ending the reading Wars: Reading Acquisition from Novice to Expert

The Association between Poor reading and Internalising Problems: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Associations between Childhood Learning Disabilities and Adult-Age Mental Health Problems, Lack of Education, and Unemployment

Insights and Interpretations

COVID-19 Interruptions to Learning

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY (4.0)). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.

The authors declare that this study received funding from Finnish, The Strategic Research Council (#335727). The funder was not involved in paper development.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.