Improving public health communication delivered through trusted messengers.
Brinleigh Murphy-Reuter has a diverse background that bridges technology, entertainment, media, and learning design. She has studied gender representation in children’s media, worked in the Original Programming department at Disney Channel, and developed pro-social brand strategies for companies such as Mattel, Dove, and Disney. Brinleigh spent almost a decade at YouTube and Google and then pursued a Master’s in Education with a focus on Learning Design, Innovation, and Technology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is particularly interested in informal learning through technology - teaching people where they don’t expect to learn. Brinleigh is currently an Innovation Strategist at the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, where she translates complex research for the tech industry and public health stakeholders. Through this work, Brinleigh has recognized both the perils and promise of digital and online technology platforms to influence and impact public health.
Public health communication is facing an unprecedented crisis characterized by a shifting media environment and fundamental breakdown in traditional information dissemination. Four in five Americans go online for health information, and trust has shifted from institutions to individuals and peer networks. The conventional push model of one-directional broadcasting from public health agencies cannot compete with the decentralized, pull system of networked online information. Public health departments remain understaffed and rely on analog methods, while the "trusted messengers" the public follows online lack the time or the training to translate complex science accurately. Meanwhile, scientifically inaccurate but engaging content spreads rapidly: according to the NIH, up to 87% of health-related social media posts contain inaccurate information, while credible research remains locked behind paywalls. The growing use of AI tools presents an additional challenge; The BMJ recently reported that commercial AI models hallucinate around 50% of the time when it comes to health information. The challenge of combating misinformation and building public trust is immense; no amount of vaccine discovery will matter if the public doesn’t trust medical information and guidance. The 2024 Nature article “Influencing the Influencers” added academic weight to what was already a common prescription for the challenge and showed that providing creators with evidence leads to increased views and better knowledge construction in audiences.
Brinleigh founded Science to People (S2P) to build a translation infrastructure for the modern media ecosystem to ensure credible, evidence-based health and science information is delivered through trusted messengers. S2P moves upstream to ground digital content in vetted evidence before it reaches the public. By leveraging purpose-built AI, S2P addresses the critical gap between complex academic research and the fast-moving, creator-led digital platforms where a majority of Americans now consume information.
Brinleigh has built a powerful, two-sided product suite to address both sides of the market. VeriSci is a first-of-its-kind health communication AI platform built to access a curated corpus of over 10 million peer-reviewed articles from 500+ journals, plus content in collaboration with the National Academy of Medicine. Akari, a free, creator-facing AI platform that leverages the VeriSci engine, translates complex research into engaging social media content, providing evidence-based scripts, captions, and templates to streamline accurate content production. S2P has already demonstrated strong early traction, with an initial Akari pilot showing improvements in production efficiency, with 91% of creators rating it positively. A study conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago demonstrated promising results on perceived credibility, audience comprehension, and reduced misconceptions.
UP funding will allow Brinleigh to continue testing and refining the S2P platform in order to validate audience impact and prepare for the public launch of the product suite to meaningfully improve the public health communications architecture.
Learn more about Brinleigh Murphy-Reuter and Science to People here.
Brinleigh Murphy-Reuter has a diverse background that bridges technology, entertainment, media, and learning design. She has studied gender representation in children’s media, worked in the Original Programming department at Disney Channel, and developed pro-social brand strategies for companies such as Mattel, Dove, and Disney. Brinleigh spent almost a decade at YouTube and Google and then pursued a Master’s in Education with a focus on Learning Design, Innovation, and Technology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is particularly interested in informal learning through technology - teaching people where they don’t expect to learn. Brinleigh is currently an Innovation Strategist at the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, where she translates complex research for the tech industry and public health stakeholders. Through this work, Brinleigh has recognized both the perils and promise of digital and online technology platforms to influence and impact public health.
Public health communication is facing an unprecedented crisis characterized by a shifting media environment and fundamental breakdown in traditional information dissemination. Four in five Americans go online for health information, and trust has shifted from institutions to individuals and peer networks. The conventional push model of one-directional broadcasting from public health agencies cannot compete with the decentralized, pull system of networked online information. Public health departments remain understaffed and rely on analog methods, while the "trusted messengers" the public follows online lack the time or the training to translate complex science accurately. Meanwhile, scientifically inaccurate but engaging content spreads rapidly: according to the NIH, up to 87% of health-related social media posts contain inaccurate information, while credible research remains locked behind paywalls. The growing use of AI tools presents an additional challenge; The BMJ recently reported that commercial AI models hallucinate around 50% of the time when it comes to health information. The challenge of combating misinformation and building public trust is immense; no amount of vaccine discovery will matter if the public doesn’t trust medical information and guidance. The 2024 Nature article “Influencing the Influencers” added academic weight to what was already a common prescription for the challenge and showed that providing creators with evidence leads to increased views and better knowledge construction in audiences.
Brinleigh founded Science to People (S2P) to build a translation infrastructure for the modern media ecosystem to ensure credible, evidence-based health and science information is delivered through trusted messengers. S2P moves upstream to ground digital content in vetted evidence before it reaches the public. By leveraging purpose-built AI, S2P addresses the critical gap between complex academic research and the fast-moving, creator-led digital platforms where a majority of Americans now consume information.
Brinleigh has built a powerful, two-sided product suite to address both sides of the market. VeriSci is a first-of-its-kind health communication AI platform built to access a curated corpus of over 10 million peer-reviewed articles from 500+ journals, plus content in collaboration with the National Academy of Medicine. Akari, a free, creator-facing AI platform that leverages the VeriSci engine, translates complex research into engaging social media content, providing evidence-based scripts, captions, and templates to streamline accurate content production. S2P has already demonstrated strong early traction, with an initial Akari pilot showing improvements in production efficiency, with 91% of creators rating it positively. A study conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago demonstrated promising results on perceived credibility, audience comprehension, and reduced misconceptions.
UP funding will allow Brinleigh to continue testing and refining the S2P platform in order to validate audience impact and prepare for the public launch of the product suite to meaningfully improve the public health communications architecture.
Learn more about Brinleigh Murphy-Reuter and Science to People here.