During COVID-19, social media has played an important role for public health agencies and government stakeholders (i.e. actors) to disseminate information regarding situations, risks, and personal ...protective action inhibiting disease spread. However, there have been notable insufficient, incongruent, and inconsistent communications regarding the pandemic and its risks, which was especially salient at the early stages of the outbreak. Sufficiency, congruence and consistency in health risk communication have important implications for effective health safety instruction as well as critical content interpretability and recall. It also impacts individual- and community-level responses to information. This research employs text mining techniques and dynamic network analysis to investigate the actors’ risk and crisis communication on Twitter regarding message types, communication sufficiency, timeliness, congruence, consistency and coordination. We studied 13,598 pandemic-relevant tweets posted over January to April from 67 federal and state-level agencies and stakeholders in the U.S. The study annotates 16 categories of message types, analyzes their appearances and evolutions. The research then identifies inconsistencies and incongruencies on four critical topics and examines spatial disparities, timeliness, and sufficiency across actors and message types in communicating COVID-19. The network analysis also reveals increased communication coordination over time. The findings provide unprecedented insight of Twitter COVID-19 information dissemination which may help to inform public health agencies and governmental stakeholders future risk and crisis communication strategies related to global hazards in digital environments.
•Investigated crisis risk communication on Twitter during early stages of COVID-19.•Studied pandemic-relevant tweets from 67 US public health agencies and stakeholders.•Analyzed 16 message types, communication sufficiency, and timeliness.•Identified incongruencies and inconsistencies on four critical preventative messages.•Used dynamic network analysis to reveal increased communication coordination.
Food safety risk communication is part of the risk analysis methodology and plays an important role in the increasingly complex food system. Besides shaping consumer risk awareness, risk perception ...and risk behaviour, risk communication also affects the reputation of the food safety authorities, being especially important for securing operational stability and budget of the concerned organisations. A recent European study highlighted a high variance in risk communication preparedness of official institutions in EU member countries.
This paper presents a benchmarking instrument, the Self-evaluation Tool for Risk Communication (SET), designed for food safety authorities. SET helps decision-makers to receive a quick assessment of their preparedness level for risk communication by comparing it with international best practices.
SET divides risk communication competencies into three domains: Human capacities, Organisational management, and Risk communication activities. Several elements are assessed in each domain, evaluated on a scale from 0 to 3. The results are delivered instantly, benchmarking the scores in terms of domains and the individual elements. The data wheel visualization highlights strengths and weaknesses and points out logical improvement options for the organisation.
•Organisational aspects of risk communication are important for securing stability.•Many food safety authorities need to improve their risk communication practices.•A scoring system was developed to support food safety authorities' benchmarking.•The Self-evaluation Tool (SET) focuses on three domains of risk communication.•SET outlines logical development options and provides easily interpretable results.
This study examines the level of politicization and polarization in COVID-19 news in U.S. newspapers and televised network news from March to May 2020. Using multiple computer-assisted content ...analytic approaches, we find that newspaper coverage is highly politicized, network news coverage somewhat less so, and both newspaper and network news coverage are highly polarized. We find that politicians appear in newspaper coverage more frequently than scientists, whereas politicians and scientists are more equally featured in network news. We suggest that the high degree of politicization and polarization in initial COVID-19 coverage may have contributed to polarization in U.S. COVID-19 attitudes.
Abstract
A number of important principles in effective risk communication established in the late 20th century can provide important scientific insight into patient response to the risks posed by ...coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Early risk communication scholars found acceptability of risk was shaped by 2 key components: hazard and outrage. The number of people who are exposed, infected, and fall ill can be considered the hazard. How the public and patients and respond to messages regarding risk mitigation relates to outrage. Social and cultural factors, immediacy, uncertainty, familiarity, personal control, scientific uncertainty, and trust in institutions and media all shape perception and response to risk mesaging. Outrage factors influence the ever-changing public understanding of COVID-19 risk. In concert, hazard and outrage along with cultural and economic context shape adherence to, and overall acceptance of, personal mitigation strategies including wearing facemasks and social distancing among the general public. The spread of misinformation on social media also provides both challenges and opportunities for clinicians. Social media offers an opportunity for experts to quickly convey true information about hazards, but offers others the opportunity to counter this with the spread of misinformation and exacerbate outrage. We propose strategies for infectious diseases clinicians to apply risk communication principles and frameworks to improve patient care and public message development in response to COVID-19.
Public perception of risk in a pandemic is shaped by not only the true nature of the hazard but include various contextual outrage factors. Public perception of outrage affects adherence to mitigation strategies. Social media offers important opportunities for experts to respond quickly but can also present challenges for effective risk communication during a pandemic such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Governments throughout the world can learn many critical lessons from examining instances of ineffective communication with the public during the global coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) pandemic. ...Ineffective government communication has resulted in a great deal of public confusion and misunderstanding, as well as serious errors in responding to this evolving health threat, leading to disastrous health and social outcomes for the public and prolonging the pandemic, especially within the United States. This article uses systems theory as a template for analyzing government communication in the United States during the COVID‐19 pandemic, providing governments with recommendations for establishing effective health risk communication strategies for use with the public. The communication strategies offered here promote the delivery of relevant, accurate, and sensitive information to key public groups, minimizing communication noise to guide desirable coordinated actions. These communication strategies can be applied locally, nationally, and internationally.
The stigma associated with monkeypox (mpox) may prevent people from following recommended guidelines. Using a “model of stigma communication,” this study maps and determines the mpox stigma on ...Twitter among LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and more) community.
The tweets that contained the terms ‘#monkeypox’, ‘#MPVS’, ‘#stigma’, and ‘#LGBTQ+’ and were published between May 01, 2022 and Sept 07, 2022 were extracted. For sentiment analysis, the VADER, Text Blob, and Flair analysers were implemented. This study evaluated the dynamics of stigma communication based on the “model of stigma communication”. A total of 70,832 tweets were extracted, from which 66,387 tweets were passed to the sentiment analyser and 3100 tweets were randomly selected for manual coding. Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) criteria was adopted to report this study.
This research provided insight on the cause, communication, and patterns of mpox stigma in the LGBTQ+ community. In the community, stigmatisation was influenced by the group's labelling as the source of monkeypox. Some users believed that mpox resembled previously observed diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and COVID-19. Despite officials and media outlets disseminating information about preventing mpox and stigmatisation, a number of individuals failed to comply. The LGBTQ+ community faced peril in the form of violence due to escalating stigma. Misinformation and misinterpretation spread further stigmatisation.
This study indicates that authorities must address misinformation, stigmatization of the LGBTQ+ community, and the absence of a comprehensive risk-communication plan to improve the system. The effects of stigmatization on the vulnerable population must be handled in conjunction with a well-developed risk communication plan, without jeopardizing their wellbeing.
One of the main challenges of emergency management lies in communicating risks to the public. On some occasions, risk communicators might seek to increase awareness over emerging risks, while on ...others the aim might be to avoid escalation of public reactions. Social media accounts offer an opportunity to rapidly distribute critical information and in doing so to mitigate the impact of emergencies by influencing public reactions. This article draws on theories of risk and emergency communication in order to consider the impact of Twitter as a tool for communicating risks to the public. We analyse 10,020 Twitter messages posted by the official accounts of UK local government authorities (councils) in the context of two major emergencies: the heavy snow of December 2010 and the riots of August 2011. Twitter was used in a variety of ways to communicate and manage associated risks including messages to provide official updates, encourage protective behaviour, increase awareness and guide public attention to mitigating actions. We discuss the importance of social media as means of increasing confidence in emergency management institutions.
•We examine the impact of Twitter as a tool for communicating risks to the public.•Twitter can support different strategies of risk amplification.•We found both informational and inferential components in Twitter messages.•Twitter can help accelerate transitions between emergency management stages.•Twitter can be useful to manage expectations over emergency resources.
Studies are continuously performed to improve risk communication campaign designs to better prepare residents to act in the safest manner during an emergency. To that end, this article investigates ...the predictive ability of the protective action decision model (PADM), which links environmental and social cues, predecision processes (attention, exposure, and comprehension), and risk decision perceptions (threat, alternative protective actions, and stakeholder norms) with protective action decision making. This current quasi‐longitudinal study of residents (N = 400 for each year) in a high‐risk (chemical release) petrochemical manufacturing community investigated whether PADM core risk perceptions predict protective action decision making. Telephone survey data collected at four intervals (1995, 1998, 2002, 2012) reveal that perceptions of protective actions and stakeholder norms, but not of threat, currently predict protective action decision making (intention to shelter in place). Of significance, rather than threat perceptions, perception of Wally Wise Guy (a spokes‐character who advocates shelter in place) correlates with perceptions of protective action, stakeholder norms, and protective action decision making. Wally's response‐efficacy advice predicts residents’ behavioral intentions to shelter in place, thereby offering contextually sensitive support and refinement for PADM.
Abstract
Background
Responses from the H1N1 swine flu pandemic and the recent COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic provide an opportunity for insight into the role of health authorities’ ways of ...communicating health risk information to the public. We aimed to synthesise the existing evidence regarding different modes of communication used by health authorities in health risk communication with the public during a pandemic.
Methods
We conducted a rapid scoping review. MEDLINE and EMBASE were searched for publications in English from January 2009 through October 2020, covering both the full H1N1 pandemic and the response phase during the COVID-19 pandemic. The search resulted in 1440 records, of which 48 studies met our eligibility criteria
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Results
The present review identified studies across a broad interdisciplinary field of health risk communication. The majority focused on the H1N1 pandemic and the COVID-19 pandemic. A content analysis of the studies identified three categories for modes of communication: i) communication channels, ii) source credibility and iii) how the message is communicated. The identified studies on social media focused mainly on content and engagement, while studies on the effect of the use of social media and self-protective behaviour were lacking. Studies on the modes of communication that take the diversity of receivers in the field into account are lacking. A limited number of studies of health authorities’ use of graphic and audio-visual means were identified, yet these did not consider/evaluate creative communication choices.
Conclusion
Experimental studies that investigate the effect of health authorities’ videos and messages on social media platforms and self-protective behaviour are needed. More studies are needed across the fields of health risk communication and media studies, including visual communication, web design, video and digital marketing, at a time when online digital communication is central to reaching the public.
The moderation roles of empathy and perceived waiting time (PWT) on post-pandemic travel intentions have not as yet been investigated. This study of 684 Chinese resident respondents elicited how ...COVID-19 risk messages affected post-pandemic travel intentions. The results showed that people exposed to messages in the risk-amplifying frame had lower basic travel and destination travel intentions than those who were exposed to messages in the risk- attenuating frame. Empathy had a beneficial effect on basic travel intentions and had an inducing effect on destination travel intentions only in high-risk situations. High PWT tourists had more positive destination travel intentions in the risk-attenuating frame. The findings provide a theoretical basis for future research as well as practical implications for destination risk communications and market restoration during a public health crisis.
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