Risk Communication in Disease Outbreaks - Introduction

"We are more concerned about health risks that are involuntary, unfamiliar, uncontrollable, epidemic, grouped by time and location, fatal."

This presentation provides a guideline for two sessions that can be offered in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first part focuses on risk communication 101, exploring the complexity of human behaviour and examining a model from Paul Slovic's "Perception of Risk" (1987). The Extended Parallel Process Model is presented as a way to understand what is needed for individuals to take protective action. Also examined is the World Health Organization (WHO)'s Integrated Model for Emergency Risk Communication.

As noted here, a landscape and literature review reveals that effective risk communication and community engagement:

• Is built on trust;
• Responds to community concerns;
• Is participatory and fosters ownership;
• Is coordinated;
• Meets holistic needs of the community; and
• Leverages lessons learned, local structures, and capacities.

The second half of the presentation explores key components and considerations for planning risk communication for COVID-19, in these topic areas:

1. Understanding the Context - Suggestions include: Call in social scientists; understand the situation/cultural context, social structures, relationships, etc.; and engage communities in identifying and solving their own problems.
2. Selecting Audiences - Presented here are questions to be asked and links to sample technical guidance.
3. Prioritising Behaviours and Developing Messaging - Some of the issues to be addressed include: complacency (e.g., implement a campaign that celebrates people who continue to play it safe); stigma (e.g., counter immediately by increasing belief in the health facts, empathy toward affected people, and motivation to help); and misinformation (e.g., air radio/TV broadcasts and use social media to dispel rumours and restore trust, using trusted sources).
4. Contextualising Messages and Interventions - The presentation looks at message maps, questions to be asked for each audience, and the contribution social behaviour change (SBC) theory can make.
5. Selecting Channels - Options explored include: mass media; community engagement; print media; and mobile, digital, and social media. (Multi-modal SBC interventions - using communication channels such as traditional and social media, radio jingles, and community events - have been shown to be effective for reinforcing messages and changing behaviours.)
6. Engaging Communities - The presentation stresses the importance of involving those affected in understanding the risks they face and in response actions that are acceptable to them is highlighted. A chart shows the continuum of community engagement.

The presentation concludes with a series of examples, with a focus on the SuperAmma campaign for changing hand washing behaviour (see Related Summaries, below).