Community engagement with health messages on reproductive health in an age of misinformation and political polarisation: A case study of the US NGO Open Arms in Florida

How do young members of disadvantaged communities in countries like the US, which has been affected by political polarisation and attacks from far-right populist politicians on women’s rights, make sense of messages on reproductive health in the misinformation age? Following from the conclusion of a Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) funded project which examined how 52 NGOs from across the world are making use of communications tools for advocacy on sexuality and reproductive health (SRHR) , this study engaged with communities in Florida, US, in partnership with the NGO Open Arms, to assess how they consume media content on reproductive health, particularly on social media, within a context of proliferation of ‘fake news’. Applying a feminist methodological epistemology and a participatory approach which aims to ‘empower’ participants, two focus groups with males and females from diverse ethnicities, between 18 and 40 years of age, were conducted with Open Arms in July and August 2023. Findings revealed how groups are exposed to a lot of inaccurate news, misinformation and ‘myths’ around fertility treatments on the web, and how they feel there is a need for better scientific information on reproductive health in the media and on the Internet, one which is also more ‘entertaining’ and which speaks directly to their experiences. This study concludes in favour of improving health literacy approaches as well as communications on reproduction health.