2025–2026 Grant Focus:

Fostering Trust and Countering Misinformation in Public Health

Effective public health communication serves as the backbone of community health, providing the tools and knowledge necessary for individuals to make informed decisions. From promoting vaccinations to encouraging healthy behaviors, effective communication ensures that individuals have the information they need to make informed decisions. Recent global events, including the COVID-19 pandemic and other large-scale outbreaks like measles, have highlighted and magnified challenges in public health communication.

Large volumes of misinformation and disinformation have spread rapidly, often undermining trust in science and public institutions. Public health professionals play a vital role in addressing these challenges by fostering trust through transparency, engagement, and culturally relevant approaches. Working at the local level is especially important, as it allows public health efforts to address specific community contexts, build meaningful relationships, and create tailored strategies to counter misinformation and promote trust in science and institutions.

This year, the grant invited proposals that address one or both of the following priority areas:

• Building trust in public health
• Countering misinformation and disinformation

This year’s 2025–2026 grant recipients demonstrate a shared commitment to strengthening trust in public health and advancing community-informed approaches to counter misinformation. We are proud to support this year’s grant recipients and the important work they are leading in their communities. Final findings and key insights from these projects will be shared at the end of the grant period.

Grand Erie Public Health

Improving Communication Strategies and Building Trust with the Low German Speaking Mennonite (LGSM) Population in Norfolk County and Surrounding Area
In response to the challenges with communicating public health messages during Ontario’s measles outbreak, this project focuses on strengthening health communication and trust with the LGSM community in Norfolk County and surrounding areas. The outbreak revealed the need to understand the cultural and social factors shaping health beliefs and to develop communication strategies that are trusted and culturally appropriate with LGSM populations. To address those gaps, the project will work closely with community members, faith leaders, and service providers, using focus groups and interviews to explore the cultural and social factors that shape health beliefs, while identifying trusted information sources and preferred communication channels.

With the development of evidence-informed communication, this initiative aims to deliver health messages in ways that resonate with the community’s values and traditions and to ultimately protect and promote the health of this population.

Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health

From Misinformation to Motivation: Empowering Youth Vaccine Champions in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph
School-based vaccine coverage rates continue to fall short of provincial targets, leaving youth at risk for preventable diseases. While parents are often the focus of vaccine campaigns, youth themselves are frequently overlooked. To strengthen vaccine confidence and counter misinformation, this project takes a youth-led approach by empowering young people to become trusted voices in their communities.

The project will recruit and train local youth as vaccine champions, equipping them with accurate vaccine information, communication skills, and leadership tools. Working in partnership with youth wellness hubs, these champions will lead creative outreach initiatives to share trusted information and promote vaccine confidence among their peers and families.

By centering youth voices, this project aims to build long-term trust in public health messaging and create a foundation for healthier, more informed communities.

York Region Public Health

Countering Vaccine Misinformation Through Social Listening: Strengthening Parental Trust in Measles Immunization
Misinformation about vaccines spreads rapidly online, shaping parental decisions and eroding trust in public health. Post-pandemic, and coinciding with a primary care shortage, York Region has seen rising philosophical exemptions to routine childhood immunizations. To keep up with fast-moving vaccine narratives this project aims to create a new social listening tool that will help public health better understand and respond to misinformation more effectively.

This project will develop and pilot a real-time social listening tool to better understand and respond to misinformation as it emerges. Using machine learning and multilingual capabilities, the tool will scan publicly available posts across major social media platforms to identify misinformation, information gaps and emerging trends about measles vaccination. 

By leveraging technology and equity-focused communication, this initiative aims to reduce the impact of misinformation and sustain immunization coverage.