Key Summary
- 1 in 5 young adults regret health choices made from false claims; 38% know someone seriously harmed.
- Generative AI chatbots were also highlighted as a source of bad health advice.
- Nearly half of the respondents (47%) support state intervention.
A fifth of young adults in Britain have made a medical or lifestyle decision they later regretted after falling victim to health misinformation, according to a report published by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).
The study, titled Health Misinformation: Public Perceptions of Threat to the UK, evaluated a nationally representative Survation survey of 2,110 UK adults conducted in September 2026.
The findings outline a mounting public health dilemma, showing that more than a third (38%) of those aged 18 to 24 personally know someone who suffered direct physical harm - such as contracting vaccine-preventable diseases or postponing acute medical care - due to inaccurate claims.
Social media was identified as the primary vector of bad information, cited by 61% of those who had encountered health falsehoods, followed by blogs and websites (30%), informal circles of friends and family (27%), traditional media (26%), and workplace peers (20%). Generative AI chatbots were also highlighted as a source of bad health advice by 19% of respondents.
Commercialised and polarised wellness areas dominated false claims seen over the past six months, led by vaccines (24%) and dietary supplements or off-label weight-loss injections (21%), followed by climate-related health claims (18%) and mental health therapies (16%).
Around 60% of respondents warned that misinformation drives people to purchase unverified therapies, erodes trust in NHS clinical services, and encourages the refusal of evidence-based treatments. Consequently, 47% demanded stronger government intervention, prioritising legislation to penalise commercial actors profiting from fraudulent health advice, public health literacy programmes, and mandatory warning flags on social platforms.
Professor Liam Smeeth, Director of LSHTM, commented: "With a fifth of UK adults saying they have made a health decision they regret based on health misinformation, rising to a third of those aged under 34, and a fifth saying they know someone who has suffered serious harm as a result of health misinformation, this is a problem that we can no longer ignore.
"In a world of invisible algorithms and closed networks, both online and offline, we often don’t know what kinds of false or misleading health information our families, friends, and neighbours are being exposed to. This report gives us a detailed picture of the health misinformation people in the UK are encountering, their concerns about it, the harm they believe it is causing, and what they think we should do about it.
"Health misinformation is sometimes dismissed as a fringe problem, but this new evidence suggests the false and misleading claims in our feeds, online, and in everyday conversations are seriously damaging the UK’s health. We hope these findings will motivate institutions across the UK to consider what more they can do to help people identify and resist harmful health misinformation and find the accessible, trustworthy health information they need."
The study authors noted that the findings were based on self-reported survey responses and that sample sizes outside England were comparatively small.
