Modern Problems Require Modern Solutions: The Internet’s Role in the COVID-19 Pandemic

By Robert Rampani

Figure 1. The Safer Ways App updates with real time information about COVID-19 guideline compliance

What do psychology, public health, tobacco control policy, the Internet, and the COVID-19 pandemic all have in common? These topics all fuse together to form the research and passions of Dr. Kurt M. Ribisl, a Jo Anne Earp Distinguished Professor in the Department of Health Behavior at the UNC Gillings School of Public Health. Dr. Ribisl has spent the majority of his adult research life investigating and recommending practices, procedures, and systems to help “evaluat[e] and improv[e] populationlevel efforts to reduce tobacco use with a particular emphasis on policy and information technology.”1 This has manifested in numerous ways throughout his career, from a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University, to currently being the Chair of the Department of Health Behavior at the UNC Gillings School of Public Health, and being a CoFounder of Counter Tools. Counter Tools is a nonprofit focused on drawing “on the best available science and an evidence-based model of change to help… partners reduce the impact of products that harm the health of individuals and communities.”2 Today, Dr. Ribisl teaches about health behavior at UNC, and conducts research that is influenced by his experience in combining multiple disciplines of interest. While reducing tobacco use and encouraging proper health behavior to reduce the spread of COVID-19 may seem like different goals, some of the same underlying principles apply in both preventative measures. Both, in essence, are collective issues that need to be addressed on a large scale. As Dr. Ribisl expressed, “medicine [and] psychology [are] focused on individuals, where public health has a bigger focus on a population approach.”3 The fusion of the individual, psychological approach and a more collective, populational-behavioral approach is a key tenant of Dr. Ribisl’s work. This interdisciplinary focus, both on tobacco research and now looking at the effects and shortcomings of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, has yielded an unprecedented level of success. One major success has been in the area of warning labels for tobacco products. Dr. Ribisl has worked extensively with members of the psychological, communication, visual design, and medical communities to create warnings that explicitly inform and dissuade consumers from using products detrimental to their health (Figure 2).

The Internet is another area that links the fight against tobacco and the pandemic. Dr. Ribisl has been investigating the use of the Internet for decades; during his time teaching the class “The Internet & Public Health” at

Kurt M. Ribisl, PhD.

Figure 2. New explicit warning labels for tobacco and vaping products in the United States Gillings, Dr. Ribisl emphasizes, “the Internet and any digital technology is a double-edged sword; there are great digital tools and ways to implement best practices in public health, but they can also be used to spread information and disinformation.”3 This continual battle against disinformation can get incredibly frustrating, as Dr. Ribisl expressed, but its ability to simultaneously be a pipeline for public health officials is at the same time encouraging. Use of the Internet in public health has been firmly rooted as a standard practice for years now, but it was Dr. Ribisl back in 2003 who foresaw that “the Internet is fast becoming a new battleground between tobacco control advocates and pro-tobacco forces” and stressed the importance of further research into the use of the Internet as an advocacy tool for public health officials.4 The interdisciplinary approach of utilizing the Internet for public health measures has contributed to the decrease in tobacco use over the last 20 years, which has been vital to increasing the overall health of the American teenage and young adult populations.5

The Internet during the COVID-19 pandemic has made the transfer to working and learning at home possible. The importance of the Internet in maintaining a productive society cannot be overstated. Nevertheless, the disinformation about the pandemic has been a real fighting point for Dr. Ribisl and other public health experts across the globe. One way Dr. Ribisl has utilized the Internet to the advantage of public health officials is through an app called “Safer Ways,” which was developed as a vast team effort with faculty and developers across UNC and the country. Through crowdsourcing, Safer Ways provides up-to-date information on crowd size, social distancing, and mask usage for hotspots both indoors and outdoors at UNC-Chapel Hill. This reliance on the community is a big pillar in bringing the pandemic to a close, as it both holds the public accountable and spreads positive information about vaccination and treatment.3 In everything he does, Dr. Ribisl asks “what are the systems and policies we’ve created?” and “what outcomes do those systems and policies contribute to?”3 While tobacco use may have a more drawn-out answer, the COVID-19 pandemic has given, within just a year, a glimpse into governmental regulation and public health experts’ communicative effectiveness. This demonstration of the importance of bringing multiple branches of the sciences together – both those focused on individual and collective response – and the use of every public channel available to spread information has been a tiring one. Nevertheless, Dr. Ribisl and his colleagues at Gillings have strived to spread positive scientific research on the use of vaccinations and will continue to do so in other aspects of the health challenges of today. The pandemic has shown the strengths and weaknesses in public health messaging, epidemiology, infectious disease control, distribution channels, and workflow management. Despite the vast room for improvement, interdisciplinary approaches, like Dr. Ribisl’s, have kept the world afloat as it crawls towards a resolution and a return to normalcy. Dr. Ribisl encourages all members of the Carolina community to remember to follow the COVID-19 guidelines, and to balance their part of the collective fight alongside individual mental health. “People need to find ways to interact and have fun and get outdoors while still following guidelines,” he stressed, to ensure “we don’t become isolated and shut-in.”3 As undergraduates hope to return to campus this fall, it is increasingly important to remember that the most successful approaches to modern problems require cooperation between experts in every field, as well as everyone outside of the scientific community. Dr. Ribisl’s work is simply one example of the importance of collective response to the challenges of 2021 and beyond. Everyone now serves as a member of the collective to return to what is now called pre-pandemic life.

“The Internet and any digital technology is a double-edged sword; there are great digital tools and ways to implement best practices in public health, but they can also be used to spread information and disinformation.”

References

1. UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. Kurt M. Ribisl, PhD. https://sph.unc.edu/adv_profile/kurt-m-ribisl-phd/ (accessed February 20th, 2021) 2. Counter Tools. https://countertools.org/ (accessed February 20th, 2021) 3. Interview with Kurt M. Ribisl, PhD. 02/19/21 4. Ribisl, K. M. Tobacco Control 2003, 12.1, i48-i59 5. United States Centers for Disease Control. Health, United States 2019 Comprehensive Review. https://www.cdc.gov/ nchs/data/hus/hus19-508.pdf (accessed March 10th, 2021)