The Opportunity
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed a critical gap in British Columbia’s public health system: many communities, including newcomers, racialized populations, and people who rely on languages other than English, did not consistently receive timely, trusted, and culturally relevant health information. This contributed to misinformation being spread rapidly, declining trust in public health guidance, and widening health inequities.
Today, misinformation is a growing public health threat across all communities. In addition, language, cultural, and access barriers can make some groups more vulnerable. At the same time, powerful AI tools have increased the volume, speed, and sophistication of misinformation, including content that can be translated and tailored for different audiences. That’s why public health organizations need scalable approaches that combine multilingual AI-powered monitoring with trusted community partnerships, so misinformation can be detected and addressed early, before it causes harm.
Approximately one-third of Canadian immigrants primarily speak French, Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese), Punjabi or Hindi, or Arabic. Yet public health organizations continue to face significant challenges monitoring multilingual misinformation at scale, and understanding the unique information needs of diverse communities.
Without access to trustworthy health information, we simply cannot build healthy, resilient communities. This is why we are supporting a project that will build BC’s first multilingual public health intelligence system, designed to help identify misinformation early, understand community concerns, and improve access to reliable, culturally relevant health information.
Importantly, this initiative takes an upstream public health approach by addressing the social determinants of misinformation and distrust before they lead to adverse health outcomes. Rather than responding only after misinformation causes harm, this project seeks to proactively strengthen community trust, improve access to culturally relevant information, and build communication resilience, supporting both prevention and preparedness.
The Solution
The BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) plays a unique role in the province as a connector between diverse communities and public health authorities. Building on longstanding community partnerships, the BCCDC is uniquely positioned to understand where diverse communities obtain health information, who they trust, and what barriers exist to accessing reliable public health guidance.
The BCCDC’s data scientists will use AI and machine learning to create a system that brings together social media listening, community voices, and other public conversations. Through real-time monitoring of health-related discussions, and combining this with direct community feedback, public health organizations can detect misinformation earlier, better understand how community needs and questions are changing, and deliver more timely, culturally appropriate, and trusted health information.
Technology alone is not the solution. Community insights gathered through trusted partnerships will help validate emerging concerns, provide critical cultural context, and ensure health messaging is relevant and effective. The BCCDC team will use these insights to develop culturally responsive communications and distribute them through trusted community networks and organizations, helping to ensure that information reaches people in ways that resonate and can be acted upon.
Together, these systems will create a powerful new public health tool capable of identifying emerging misinformation, strengthening trust, and capturing community perspectives that conventional surveillance and AI alone cannot detect.
The Impact
As global threats continue to emerge, misinformation often spreads faster than disease itself, eroding trust and preparedness. By combining real-time intelligence with community-informed insights, this system will enable public health practitioners to identify community concerns and misinformation earlier, respond more effectively, and build trust before and during public health emergencies. This work advances health equity by ensuring all community members have culturally appropriate and trusted information required to make informed decisions for their health and will serve as a model for future public health emergency preparedness programs.
The impact extends beyond crisis response. By ensuring people have access to accurate, culturally relevant, and trusted information, the project advances health equity and empowers individuals and families to make informed decisions about their health and well-being.
Initially, this program will serve linguistic minority populations, including communities with a significant representation in BC such as South Asian, Chinese, and Arabic-speaking populations. The platform is scalable and can introduce monitoring of additional languages, health topics, and can be implemented across other provinces, serving as a tool that can impact the healthcare landscape throughout the country.
This represents a new model for public health emergency preparedness in Canada. By targeting the root causes of information inequity, the project supports prevention, preparedness, and resilience while creating a framework that can be adapted across provinces and jurisdictions nationwide.
This project is being co-designed with community members and advisory groups, ensuring that AI-driven messaging is culturally informed, validated and delivered, with appropriate language nuance and context. Current partners already include MOSAIC, RésoSanté, Science Up First, and Black Physicians of Canada, among others, whose expertise will help ensure the program reflects the realities and needs of the communities it serves.
Meet the Researchers
Dr Hind Sbihi is the director of Data Science & Innovation for Epidemiology and Intelligence Services at BCCDC and a clinical assistant professor at UBC School of Population and Public Health. Hind’s work focuses on identifying intervention strategies to reduce exposures and improve health, and in integrating surveillance systems for emerging pathogens.
Dr Prital Patel is a Senior Scientist at BCCDC and a Clinical Assistant Professor at UBC. Her work focuses on strengthening real-time public health surveillance through integrated health data. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she trained community leaders representing more than 100 ethnocultural communities and partnered with newcomer, refugee, and older adult populations to address health information needs and misinformation. These experiences provided firsthand insight into how misinformation spreads and the critical role of trusted community voices.
“This project is a mix of both technological components, and human components. It’s people who are connected to communities who’ve got an ear on the ground, and they’re picking up things that maybe are not in the digital space. Through COVID-19, a lot of the misinformation was spread through WhatsApp groups. This is why the community advisory group is so important. And the health advisory group is also important because they are connected directly to patients going to hospitals or in the public health system. It’s using both the power of AI and the power of people on the ground that are most in touch with public health.”
Why Philanthropy Matters
Canada is admired the world over for our universal, publicly funded healthcare system. It is a system that is supposed to take care of all Canadians, regardless of wealth, ethnicity, language, or location. Yet many communities, including newcomers, racialized populations, and Indigenous Peoples, continue to experience barriers that limit access not only to healthcare services, but also to the trusted information needed to navigate health risks and make informed decisions.
This project will help communities in BC that do not use English as their primary language gain better access to trustworthy, culturally appropriate public health information in their own language, provided through trusted community sources. This project, that blends technology and community involvement to combat misinformation and provide accurate public health guidance, is currently not being funded by the federal or provincial government. This work falls outside the scope of our publicly funded healthcare system, and would not be made possible without the donors like you. Your support will help ensure that everyone can access reliable health information in their preferred language through trusted sources, to keep themselves, their families, and communities safe, particularly in times of crisis, and emerging health threats.
Please contact fundraising@pphf.ca if you would like to help create a more equitable, resilient, and prepared public health system.