More Australian GPs are concerned about medical misinformation in their communities than a year ago, according to new data from the Royal Australian College of GPs' upcoming 2026 Health of the Nation report.
According to the RACGP, 44 per cent of GPs identified addressing misinformation in the community as a challenge in their work in 2026, up from 35 per cent in 2025. The findings come from a nationwide survey of more than 2,700 GPs.
RACGP President Dr. Michael Wright said patients are increasingly turning to online platforms, social media and AI-powered tools for health information before they speak with a doctor. "The rapid growth of artificial intelligence is making it easier for health misinformation to spread online," he said, adding that AI-generated content is becoming more widespread, more personalised and more convincing — and therefore harder to identify and counter.
According to Dr. Wright, the consequences are practical, not abstract. He said relying on inaccurate online advice can delay diagnosis, discourage preventive healthcare, undermine trust in evidence-based medicine, and in some cases put people's health at serious risk. Health decisions are highly personal, he said, and seeing a GP directly remains the best way to access trusted, credible advice that takes a person's medical history, risk factors, medications and personal circumstances into account.
The findings arrive as governments, regulators and health organisations grapple with both sides of artificial intelligence in healthcare. According to the RACGP, government guidance notes that AI can improve diagnosis and treatment, but can also be difficult to interpret and may not perform equally well for all patients.
What happens next is the release of the full Health of the Nation report, which will set out the survey's findings in full and frame the debate about how doctors, platforms and policymakers respond. For now, the survey's message from frontline doctors is clear: misinformation has moved from a background worry to one of the main challenges of their working year.
Image credit: Medical consultation by Roel Coutinho, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).