Every day, millions of people in Britain make decisions about their health. The process often begins with a question—should I get this vaccine? Is this supplement safe? Do I need to see a doctor?—and the answer now comes from a screen. It might be a social media post shared by a friend, a short video from an influencer, or a smooth response from an artificial intelligence chatbot. Sometimes the advice is sound. Often, it is not. New research carried out for the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine by Survation surveyed 2,110 UK adults online on 9 and 10 September 2026, and the findings are sobering. Two in five respondents said they had come across health information they believed to be false or misleading. One in four said they had made a health decision based on it. One in five said they knew someone who had come to serious harm as a result—catching a preventable disease, buying into a fake cure, or delaying medical treatment until their condition worsened. The worry radiates far beyond those who have been personally affected. Half of all adults worry that misinformation could harm a family member. More than six in ten think it will cause people to believe in or buy fake cures, and a similar proportion believe it will undermine trust in the country’s health services. It would be easy to dismiss these as abstract concerns, but they are lived experiences. A parent deciding whether to vaccinate a child. A student skipping lectures because a wellness influencer promised a mental and physical “cleanse.” A retired person spending savings on an unlicensed supplement. Because the survey was weighted to reflect the national population, these percentages translate into millions of ordinary families, not a small eccentric fringe. The researchers were not counting clicks and shares; they were looking for changes in behaviour. They found that misinformation is not simply making people sceptical. It is changing what they do, sometimes with devastating consequences. Behind every percentage point is a person who believed something false and made a decision that mattered.
If misinformation were confined to the dark corners of internet forums, most people could simply avoid it. But this survey suggests it arrives through the very channels we already use and trust. Among those who had encountered health misinformation, the most common source was social media, cited by 61%. That is not surprising; social media is where much of modern life takes place. But it is far from the only source. Three in ten had seen false claims on websites or blogs, more than a quarter had heard them from family or friends, and another quarter had encountered them through traditional news media. Perhaps most striking is the growing role of artificial intelligence. One in five adults overall had come across health misinformation from an AI chatbot, but among 18-to-34-year-olds the figure rose to 31%, compared with just 10% of over-65s. The chatbot era is only beginning, and these numbers suggest it is already becoming a major vector for confusion. It is easy to imagine how this happens: a person types a vague symptom into a chatbot, receives an authoritative-sounding answer, and has no way of knowing what the AI used to come up with it. The subject matter is just as wide-ranging. Nearly a quarter of respondents had seen false or misleading claims about vaccines, a topic with direct public health consequences. One in five had encountered dubious content about dietary supplements or weight-loss injections, many of which are heavily marketed online. Climate change and mental health each featured in around one in six encounters, while one in eight involved women’s reproductive health, including fertility, contraception, abortion and the menopause. These topics are not abstract: they are the everyday decisions people make about their children, their bodies, their moods and their money. And misinformation often wears a friendly face. It might be a relative sharing a “natural cure” in a family WhatsApp group, an influencer speaking earnestly about detoxes, or a blog that looks professional but cites no real science. The survey’s finding that a quarter of people encountered health misinformation from family and friends is a reminder that this is not simply about anonymous strangers online. It is social.
Nowhere is the impact of health misinformation felt more acutely than among younger adults. The numbers are striking. While 26% of all respondents said they had made a health decision based on false or misleading information, that figure rose to 44% among 18-to-34-year-olds. It fell to just 8% among over-65s. One in five young adults has made a health decision they later regretted, compared with 14% of the general population. This is not because young people are more foolish. It is because they are more likely to be exposed, and their habits for checking information point in risky directions. When asked how they would decide whether a health claim was accurate, young adults were far more likely than over-65s to turn to social media (28% vs 5%), to ask an AI chatbot (25% vs 8%), or to consult family and friends (30% vs 12%). They were far less likely to check NHS or government websites (41% vs 59%) or to ask a GP or pharmacist (40% vs 58%). The result is that their circles are full of stories of harm: 34% of 18-to-34-year-olds know someone who has come to serious harm because of health misinformation, while only 7% of over-65s can say the same. These are not just statistics. They are young people who skipped vaccines because of a TikTok video, or bought dangerous diet pills promoted by an influencer, or delayed seeking help for a worrying symptom because an online forum told them it was nothing. They later regretted it, and some will live with the consequences for years. Yet older adults are not untouched—in fact, they are the least confident of any generation. Only 37% of over-65s feel confident distinguishing true from false health claims, compared with 48% of 18-to-34s. So the group most likely to act on misinformation is also the group most confident in its own judgement, while the group with the least exposure is the group that feels most overwhelmed. This is a complicated generational trap, and it suggests that simple warnings are not enough. It also suggests that young people are not simply being careless; they are navigating an information system that has never existed before, with fewer guardrails and more ways to be led astray.
Health misinformation also follows a geographical pattern. In the North East, 31% of respondents said they knew someone who had come to serious harm because of false health information. In London, the figure was 29%. In the South East and West Midlands, it dropped to 18%. The divide appears to be linked to how people verify health claims. Londoners were among the least likely to check information against NHS or government websites—just 41% did—and among the most likely to turn to social media (25%) or AI chatbots (27%). In the North East, 30% asked family or friends for advice. There is nothing wrong with asking people we trust; but when everyone is relying on the same unverified sources, falsehoods can spread through social networks like a virus. The survey also measured confidence, and the results show how shaky the ground is. Fewer than half of all adults, 45%, feel confident in their ability to judge whether a health claim is accurate; 19% say they are not very or not at all confident. Even finding reliable information is difficult for some. While 57% feel confident they can find dependable health information when they need it, 13% do not. In Yorkshire and Humber, confidence in finding reliable information falls to 44%, while in the North West it is 69%. This is not just a question of individual skill. It reflects differing access to education, local services, and social networks. It also suggests that health inequalities are not only about who gets medical treatment; they are about who is able to navigate a complex information environment in the first place. When people lack confidence, they may rely on signals like the number of likes, the confidence of the speaker, or the endorsement of a friend. That is exactly how misinformation thrives. The regional gap also matters for policy: a national public health campaign might be ignored in the places that need it most if it does not speak to how people in those places actually look for information. The researchers’ conclusion could not be clearer: any solution must be local as well as national, and it must meet people where they are.
There is, however, a clear sense of what needs to happen. The public is not calling for the internet to be shut down; it is calling for support. Nearly half of respondents—47%—said the Government should be doing more to tackle health misinformation, and only 10% thought it should have no role at all. When asked what priorities mattered to them, people gave concrete answers. Fifty-seven percent wanted new laws to penalise those who profit from spreading dangerous falsehoods. Fifty-four percent wanted education on how to spot misinformation, so that people could protect themselves. And 46% supported warning labels on social media content, in the same way that packaged foods carry health warnings. This is not a partisan demand. More supporters of every major political party thought the Government should do more than thought it was doing the right amount. But underneath this consensus lies a fascinating generational disagreement. The 18-to-34-year-olds who are most exposed to misinformation are the least likely to want the Government to intervene. Only 33% of them said the Government should be doing more, compared with 65% of over-65s. In fact, 19% of young people thought the Government should be doing less. Some of this may reflect youth scepticism about authority; some may reflect a belief that people should be responsible for their own choices. But it creates a challenge for policymakers. If the people most likely to spread and be harmed by misinformation do not want state involvement, then education and transparency must be designed to support individual decision-making, not simply to police content. Perhaps the answer lies in the priorities the public itself chose: educate, warn, and penalise the worst actors, rather than trying to control every message. That approach might win the confidence of both older and younger generations, because it respects people’s ability to make their own choices while giving them a fair chance to do so.
Taken together, these findings demolish the myth that health misinformation is a fringe problem for the gullible. It is everywhere, and it is doing harm. The public knows it: people are worried for their families, for strangers, and for the future of the health service. They want help, but they are not helpless. They are asking for the tools to think clearly—better education, transparency about sources, laws against those who deliberately deceive for profit. The survey also shows that the burden is not shared equally. Younger adults are in the crosshairs, making decisions based on false claims and knowing people who have been badly hurt. Older adults, meanwhile, are less confident and less equipped to judge what they read. Regional differences in harm and in confidence mean that a single national campaign will not be enough. The most effective responses are likely to be the ones built in partnership with local communities and with young people themselves. Professor Liam Smeeth, Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, put it bluntly: this is “a problem that we can no longer ignore.” The evidence is now on the table, and the scale of the problem is no longer invisible. The survey itself was carefully weighted to reflect the UK population, and the full data tables are available for anyone who wants to examine the numbers more deeply. That transparency is welcome, because this is a public health issue that demands public scrutiny. The question is not whether health misinformation exists—it does, and it is spreading. The question is whether we have the humility to admit how little we know, the courage to ask for help, and the will to do something about it before more lives are touched by words that were never true. In the often lonely moment when a patient sits in front of a search engine, looking for an answer, the difference between credible information and a polished falsehood can be the difference between health and harm. The next time you see a health claim, pause before sharing. Ask where it came from. Check it against a source you can trust. Because misinformation only works if we let it travel through us—and we all have the power to stop it.