In the current global crisis, journalists and the general public have been forced to become experts in complex public health issues – at warp speed. For a year now, we all have been confronted with a tsunami of numbers, statistical models and a science that seems to change by the day. How can you make sense of competing claims, varied specialists and the now daily jargon of a new, highly medicalized normal? Here’s an antidote: a crash course with a medical investigative journalist whose work is at the intersection between muckraking and Evidence-Based Medicine.

In this 2-hour workshop, the participants learn why a study is not ‘just a study’ and how come numbers do make sense only if put in a context. Also, how can you spot the flaws in the claims of corporate press releases and government officials? What about conflicts of interest, and how can you develop a spider-sense to spot red flags in public health communication and mainstream media reporting? With concrete examples out of the COVID-19 era, and tips to avoid common pitfalls.