On the importance of communication, advocacy, and information accuracy in destigmatizing mpox disease
Abstract Disease names that convey the location of discovery, the discovering scientists, the species of discovery, or the most impacted populations have been increasingly recognized as problematic—often leading to or amplifying xenophobia, disrepute, and stigma. In this context, in 2022 the World H...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Nature Portfolio
2025-07-01
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| Series: | Scientific Reports |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-06864-3 |
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| Summary: | Abstract Disease names that convey the location of discovery, the discovering scientists, the species of discovery, or the most impacted populations have been increasingly recognized as problematic—often leading to or amplifying xenophobia, disrepute, and stigma. In this context, in 2022 the World Health Organization proposed naming diseases after their causative pathogen or symptomatology instead. This recent guidance has been retrospectively applied to a disease at the center of an epidemic rife with intolerance and misinformation, predominantly affecting the already-stigmatized LGBTQ + community: mpox (formerly known as ‘monkeypox’). We used publicly available data from Google Trends to determine which countries or territories adopted this name change and to identify factors that influenced the preferential use of ‘mpox’ over its stigmatizing predecessor ‘monkeypox’. Specifically, we built regression models to quantify the relationship between ‘mpox’ search intensity in a given country or territory and a suite of sociopolitical, health system, and inequality variables. Key results suggest that search intensity for ‘mpox’ was higher than that for ‘monkeypox’ in locations with greater LGBTQ + acceptance and lower in locations governed by leaders who had recently propagated infectious disease-related misinformation. While the adoption of a given disease name will always be context-specific—depending in part on its origins and the affected populations—our study provides generalizable insights that are applicable to future changes in disease nomenclature. |
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| ISSN: | 2045-2322 |