Building Communication Capacity to Counter Infectious Disease Threats Proceedings of a Workshop (2017) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
4 Achieving Effective Communication
4 Achieving Effective Communication
Pages 43-68
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 43... ...
"Now, we might know that in terms of eyeballs on a story and getting your message out -- more people are getting their news digitally," said Maron. Today, more people will see a story on nytimes.com or scientificamerican.com than in the print version of those publications, and so, during an infectious disease outbreak, getting the word out on a digital platform is more likely to have a timely effect, she said.
|
From page 44... ...
. Maron believes that social media's popularity as a timely information source can be a good thing from a public health perspective, even though it can cause problems if the information getting out via social media channels is not accurate.
|
From page 45... ...
Nigerian officials stepped in quickly and through intensive social media work debunked that tweet and stopped the flow of misinformation. In terms of practical advice for public health experts and responders, Maron recommended being vigilant online to see what information and misinformation are spreading, perhaps even making that task part of someone's job.
|
From page 46... ...
. The 1 The Global Health Security Agenda is a growing partnership of more than 50 nations, international organizations, and nongovernmental stakeholders that helps build countries' capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease threats.
|
From page 47... ...
Japanese Ministry of Health told her bluntly that they knew no scientific evidence suggested any causal links between the vaccine and adverse events, but the political pressure from anti-vaccine groups forced their hand. Citing the old saying, "When the United States sneezes, the world catches a cold," Larson said when some rumors circulate in the United States, the rest of the world starts questioning vaccines, a phenomenon whose impact is underestimated.
|
From page 48... ...
The project's premise, she explained, is that early detection of and timely response to vaccine rumors can prevent loss of public confidence in immunization, program disruptions, and potential disease outbreaks. To realize this premise, she developed what she called a diagnostic tool (see Table 4-1)
|
From page 49... ...
13, Larson et al., 2013, "Measuring vaccine confidence: Analysis of data obtained by a media surveillance system used to analyse public concerns about vaccines," Pages 606-613, Copyright (2013) , with permission from Elsevier.
|
From page 50... ...
One reason for Zika's rapid spread across the globe, and a major challenge to controlling this pandemic, is that its vector, the mosquito Aedes aegypti, is highly invasive and cannot be controlled by a purely top-down, militaristic-type campaign to eliminate its breeding sites. Given the difficulty of eradicating the vector, Ernst and her colleagues have been working on a project with CDC and the Skoll Global Threats Fund to develop Kidenga, a community-based surveillance and communication app for mobile phones that would engage community members and households to actively seek out and reduce the habitat of Aedes aegypti.
|
From page 51... ...
"The dynamics surrounding how you can communicate both of those risks simultaneously have been a great challenge," said Ernst. When Ernst reviewed the literature on social listening during the Zika pandemic and how rumors about Zika spread, she found that the number of tweets about a Zika vaccine mirrored the number of tweets with pseudoscientific claims about the disease (Dredze et al., 2016)
|
From page 52... ...
A bidirectional communication platform can address those rumors and health concerns and provide tailored risk awareness from geographically located participatory surveillance. Participatory surveillance can enhance engagement and facilitate access to exposure and syndromic field data with social media feeds.
|
From page 53... ...
In 2014, the Department for International Development, a United Kingdom government agency responsible for administering overseas aid, asked van Praag and his colleagues to go to Sierra Leone to solicit feedback from the people who were at risk from Ebola during the outbreak then. "This was an extremely difficult environment to operate in because you could not get out to ask people questions," said van Praag, who explained that their methodology is based on getting into conversations with people in the community.
|
From page 54... ...
The analysis looked at positive and negative behaviors and what was driving them, the quality of services that relief workers were providing, and some information on outcomes. One step van Praag took to increase the value of the information he and his colleagues gathered was to ask people on the ground, both in Sierra Leone and in Liberia, for input on what questions they should be asking and what issues concerned them.
|
From page 55... ...
launched a nationwide anti-stigma campaign that worked well at reducing people's fears of stigmatization. Similarly, said van Praag, the initial results of the survey on quarantine showed very few people were following quarantine restrictions (see Figure 4-6)
|
From page 56... ...
In a survey of the general population of Sierra Leone, the GTS team asked people if they believed that the Ebola response was making progress against the spread of the disease. When data on the number of cases reported were added to the survey response data, the two results correlated well, suggesting that the public's sense of progress was an indicator of bringing the disease under control, said van Praag (see Figure 4-7)
|
From page 57... ...
That result led to efforts to try to address these problems related to gender-based violence and discrimination. In his final remarks, van Praag said this project shows that collecting data, even in a place like Sierra Leone in the middle of an Ebola outbreak, is not complicated.
|
From page 58... ...
"If you are going to try to better understand the science behind the research, you might want to talk to a local researcher when you are in Angola, not someone on the other side of the planet," said Chalaud. As a result, he added, "All of this research is of minimal relevance to a lot of low- and middle-income countries." To begin addressing these issues, WFSJ started targeting nonspecialized, nonscience journalists after first establishing a cadre of trained local trainers.
|
From page 59... ...
To create sustainability, WFSJ is starting to train local researchers as a means of creating a professional link between journalists and the local research community. The organization is also engaging with local civil society organizations because, as he explained, they use scientific evidence and communicate in their own way.
|
From page 60... ...
"But again, in a crisis environment, the dynamics are such that even those local, smaller NGOs, like the media, are running around like headless chickens and having to deal with lack of means, lack of money, and so on," said Chalaud. One finding of the communication ecosystem mapping exercise his organization is conducting was that information in Guinea and Sierra Leone travels through village elders, with the local civil society organizations tagging along.
|
From page 61... ...
He pointed out that the journalists WFSJ trains are part of those communities, and so they tend to be better at handling those cultural phenomena than the trainer who might be coming from another country. One strength of the GTS approach, said van Praag, is that it starts by collecting data from people in affected communities about their perceptions so that it can respond more quickly in terms of delivering messages appropriate for those communities.
|
From page 62... ...
Maron added that she has talked with scientists about this subject and many raised the need for more continuing education courses and more education earlier in training on how to talk to patients about vaccine issues. Many of the scientists also called for professional societies to issue regular updates about vaccine efficacy and safety.
|
From page 63... ...
One problem, she said, was that the response to rumors was too slow. In her opinion, health officials should have held press conferences and conducted a social media campaign as soon as the first rumors started circulating, and perhaps even a Twitter question-and-answer session that allowed the public to ask questions and get an immediate response.
|
From page 64... ...
She also recommended working with the media affairs office and cultivating relationships with a few journalists. Other Avenues for Information Dissemination Larson commented on the importance of reaching out to trusted leaders in communities during quiet times to form the relationships that will be significant during disease outbreaks.
|
From page 65... ...
Maryn McKenna, an independent journalist and author, pointed out that major corporations all have social media teams that function essentially as crisis communication teams. During quiet times, these teams monitor social media streams for mention of their company so that when something happens or something negative about the company appears, they are ready to respond immediately.
|
From page 66... ...
Google Flu Trends and Google Dengue Trends are two examples of programs that mine Internet traffic to spot emerging infectious disease outbreaks. She noted, though, that there is a big gap in the response that occurs after acquiring that evidence.
|
From page 67... ...
She noted, though, that the Global Health Security Agenda resulted in some resources becoming available to create systems and infrastructure to detect microbial threats and respond earlier.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.