From Twitter to Megaphones: Seven Lessons Learned about Public Health Crisis Communication

As governments and citizens around the world have struggled with the novel coronavirus, the information space has turned into a battleground. Authoritarian countries, including Russia, China and Iran, have spread disinformation on the causes of and responses to the pandemic. The over-abundance of information, also referred to as an ‘infodemic’, including manipulated information, has been both a cause and a result of the exacerbation of the public health crisis. It is further undermining trust in democratic institutions, the independent press, and facts and data, and exacerbating the rising tensions driven by economic, political and societal challenges. This article discusses the challenges democracies have faced and the measures they have adopted to counter information manipulation that impedes public health efforts. It draws seven lessons learned from the information war and offers a set of recommendations on tackling future infodemics related to public health.

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Organizing a Mass Gathering Amidst a Rising COVID-19 Public Health Crisis: Lessons Learned From a Chinese Public Health Forum in Vancouver, BC

Cureus ◽

10.7759/cureus.12365 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Jayneel Limbachia ◽

Hollis Owens ◽

Maryam Matean ◽

Sophia S Khan ◽

Helen Novak-Lauscher ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Mass Gathering ◽

Health Crisis ◽

Public Health Crisis ◽

Chinese Public

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Disentangling rhetorical subarenas of public health crisis communication: A study of the 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak in the news media and social media in Sweden

Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management ◽

10.1111/1468-5973.12254 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Pavel Rodin ◽

Marina Ghersetti ◽

Tomas Odén

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Social Media ◽

News Media ◽

Crisis Communication ◽

Health Crisis ◽

Public Health Crisis

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Special Issue Editor’s Essay: Advancing Public Health Crisis and Risk Theory and Practice via Innovative and Inclusive Research on COVID-19 Communication

Journal of International Crisis and Risk Communication Research ◽

10.30658/jicrcr.4.2.0 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 4 (2) ◽

pp. 177-192

Author(s):

Yan Jin ◽

Sung In Choi ◽

Audra Diers-Lawson

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Risk Communication ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Theory And Practice ◽

Communication Research ◽

Special Issue ◽

International Crisis ◽

Health Crisis ◽

Public Health Crisis ◽

Global Threat

For more than a year the world has tried to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. This special issue of the Journal of International Crisis and Risk Communication Research (JICRCR) provides an expert evaluation of how different countries have responded to this global threat. As the pandemic has fundamentally affected most of our lives in a multitude of ways, lessons learned and insights gained from innovative and inclusive research have also advanced theory and practice in public health crisis and risk communication.

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Methods to support evidence-informed decision-making in the midst of COVID-19: creation and evolution of a rapid review service from the National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools

BMC Medical Research Methodology ◽

10.1186/s12874-021-01436-1 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Sarah E. Neil-Sztramko ◽

Emily Belita ◽

Robyn L. Traynor ◽

Emily Clark ◽

Leah Hagerman ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Decision Making ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Rapid Review ◽

Final Report ◽

Health Crisis ◽

Public Health Decision ◽

Public Health Crisis ◽

Health Decision

Abstract Background The COVID-19 public health crisis has produced an immense and quickly evolving body of evidence. This research speed and volume, along with variability in quality, could overwhelm public health decision-makers striving to make timely decisions based on the best available evidence. In response to this challenge, the National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools developed a Rapid Evidence Service, building on internationally accepted rapid review methodologies, to address priority COVID-19 public health questions. Results Each week, the Rapid Evidence Service team receives requests from public health decision-makers, prioritizes questions received, and frames the prioritized topics into searchable questions. We develop and conduct a comprehensive search strategy and critically appraise all relevant evidence using validated tools. We synthesize the findings into a final report that includes key messages, with a rating of the certainty of the evidence using GRADE, as well as an overview of evidence and remaining knowledge gaps. Rapid reviews are typically completed and disseminated within two weeks. From May 2020 to July 21, 2021, we have answered more than 31 distinct questions and completed 32 updates as new evidence emerged. Reviews receive an average of 213 downloads per week, with some reaching over 7700. To date reviews have been accessed and cited around the world, and a more fulsome evaluation of impact on decision-making is planned. Conclusions The development, evolution, and lessons learned from our process, presented here, provides a real-world example of how review-level evidence can be made available – rapidly and rigorously, and in response to decision-makers’ needs – during an unprecedented public health crisis.

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Narrating the crisis: Moral regulation, overlapping responsibilities and COVID-19 in Canada

Current Sociology ◽

10.1177/00113921211055860 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 001139212110558

Author(s):

Sean P Hier

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Crisis Communication ◽

Capital Accumulation ◽

Urban Poor ◽

Historical Sociology ◽

Moral Regulation ◽

Health Crisis ◽

Epidemic Curve ◽

Public Health Crisis ◽

Moral Capital

This article theorizes some of the ways that the COVID-19 health crisis was publicly narrated and morally regulated in Canada. Beginning with Valverde’s theory of moral capital, public health crisis communication is conceptualized as dialectical claims-making activities aimed at maximizing the individual moral capital of citizens and the aggregate moral capital of nations. Valverde’s historical sociology explains how moral capital operated in relation to economic capital accumulation in the context of 19th-century moral regulation of the urban poor. This article applies aspects of Valverde’s historical framework about mixed economies of regulation to contemporary biopolitical moralization in the midst of a pandemic. It does so by arguing that responsibilizing citizens to flatten the epidemic curve of the disease contributed to the social construction of a normative pandemic subject. In this way, the analysis provides insights into how public health crisis communication explicitly intended to mitigate COVID-19 infection rates both reflected and reinforced the conjunctural norms associated with neoliberal governmentality.

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Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and HIV Spotlight the United States Imperative for Permanent Affordable Housing

Clinical Infectious Diseases ◽

10.1093/cid/ciaa1327 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Elise D Riley ◽

Matthew D Hickey ◽

Elizabeth Imbert ◽

Angelo A Clemenzi-Allen ◽

Monica Gandhi

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

United States ◽

Affordable Housing ◽

Job Loss ◽

The United States ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Health Crisis ◽

Public Health Crisis ◽

Hiv Epidemic ◽

The Many

Abstract Job loss and evictions tied to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic are expected to increase homelessness significantly in the coming months. Reciprocally, homelessness and the many vulnerabilities that inevitably accompany it are driving COVID-19 outbreaks in US shelters and other congregate living situations. Unless we intervene to address homelessness, these co-existing and synergistic situations will make the current public health crisis even worse. Preventing homelessness and providing permanent affordable housing has reduced the ravages of the HIV epidemic. We must take the lessons learned in 40 years of fighting HIV to respond effectively to the COVID-19 crisis. Housing is an investment that will curb the spread of COVID-19 and help protect all of us from future pandemics.

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Community Science as a Pathway for Resilience in Response to a Public Health Crisis in Flint, Michigan

Social Sciences ◽

10.3390/socsci8030094 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (3) ◽

pp. 94 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Jennifer Carrera ◽

Kent Key ◽

Sarah Bailey ◽

Joseph Hamm ◽

Courtney Cuthbertson ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Focus Groups ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Water Crisis ◽

Health Crisis ◽

Demographic Groups ◽

Public Health Crisis ◽

Faith Based ◽

Community Science

While the story of the Flint water crisis has frequently been told, even sympathetic analyses have largely worked to make invisible the significant actions of Flint residents to protect and advocate for their community. Leaving the voices of these stakeholders out of narratives about the crisis has served to deepen distrust in the community. Our project responds to these silences through a community-driven research study aimed explicitly at elevating the frame of Flint residents in and around the Flint water crisis. This paper describes the coming together of the research team, the overall project design for each of the three research efforts, and lessons learned. The three sub-projects include: (1) a qualitative analysis of community sentiment provided during 17 recorded legislative, media, and community events, (2) an analysis of trust in the Flint community through nine focus groups across demographic groups (African American, Hispanic, seniors, and youth) of residents in Flint, and (3) an analysis of the role of the faith-based community in response to public health crises through two focus groups with faith based leaders from Flint involved with response efforts to the water crisis. Our study offers insight for understanding trust in crisis, which could be valuable to other communities and researchers seeking to address similar situations. The project offers community science as a model for considering community engagement in research as part of the process of resilience.

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Methods to support evidence-informed decision-making in the midst of COVID- 19: Creation and evolution of a rapid review service from the National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools

10.21203/rs.3.rs-289581/v2 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sarah Neil-Sztramko ◽

Emily Belita ◽

Robyn L. Traynor ◽

Emily Clark ◽

Leah Hagerman ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Decision Making ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Rapid Review ◽

Final Report ◽

Health Crisis ◽

Public Health Decision ◽

Public Health Crisis ◽

Health Decision

Abstract Background The COVID-19 public health crisis has produced an immense and quickly evolving body of evidence. This research speed and volume, along with variability in quality, could overwhelm public health decision-makers striving to make timely decisions based on the best available evidence. In response to this challenge, the National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools developed a Rapid Evidence Service, building on internationally accepted rapid review methodologies, to address priority COVID-19 public health questions. Methods Each week, we receive requests from public health decision-makers and frame the prioritized topics into searchable questions. We develop and conduct a comprehensive search strategy and critically appraise all relevant evidence using validated tools. We synthesize the findings into a final report that includes key messages, with a rating of the certainty of the evidence using GRADE, as well as an overview of evidence and remaining knowledge gaps. Rapid reviews are typically completed and disseminated within two weeks. Results As of May 12, 2021, we have answered more than 29 distinct questions and completed 28 updates as new evidence emerged. Reviews receive an average of 200 downloads per week, with some reaching up to 5000. To date reviews have been accessed and cited around the world, and a more fulsome evaluation of impact on decision making is planned. Conclusions The development, evolution, and lessons learned from our process, presented here, provides a real-world example of how review-level evidence can be made available – rapidly and rigorously, and in response to decision-makers’ needs – during an unprecedented public health crisis.

Download Full-text