International Workshop on COVID-19 Lessons to Inform Pandemic Influenza Response Proceedings of a Workshop (2022) / Chapter Skim
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5 Research Translation and Communication
5 Research Translation and Communication
Pages 49-60
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From page 49... ...
This chapter reviews research of nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and their effectiveness, presents various strategies for delivering clear communication and information sharing -- to avoid navigating with misinformation -- and discusses the importance of context in these situations.
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BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE Sherine Guirguis, director at Common Thread, noted enormous levels of investments in biomedical research, but not enough effort focuses on understanding people and the choices that they make. Despite tremendous improvements during COVID-19, more research in behavioral science is needed to create systematic and effective interventions that target behavioral change, she argued.
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From page 51... ...
Bahri, Larson, and Zhang emphasized that consistency and a clear and unified goal within communication is important but also highlighted the importance of giving space to different voices. Zhang agreed that it is dangerous to portray extreme binaries in media, oversimplify complex ideas, or show a consensus where there is none, especially during a changing emergency situation, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
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From page 52... ...
Bahri agreed regulatory bodies need to better inform the public that "absence of evidence and evidence of absence are not the same thing." She noted that this distinction is particularly important with new and developing vaccines, because of the ongoing accumulation of evidence and because the risk–benefit profiles of each intervention have different levels of evidence. Involving the Media Several speakers also voiced concerns over predictive public health messages and news coverage that attempts to highlight unique and interesting stories.
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From page 53... ...
Because most people are inundated with advertisements, they tend to ignore messages and to not care as much about them as public health officials assume they do. Bahri noted that regulatory bodies would especially benefit from understanding which messages "catch attention" and which ones go unnoticed.
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From page 54... ...
In addition to communication with the public, officials should also focus on communication strategies targeting health care workers and other leaders, who would then be able to have effective discussions with individuals from the community, Bahri noted. Bahri said that EMA received feedback after the H1N1 pandemic that physicians felt insufficient material focused on helping doctors communicate with their patients and more communication was focused on the public.
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He called for public health professionals to better understand governmental choices and public health responses from a political perspective to achieve better collaboration. However, Guirguis clarified that trusted leaders who disseminate public health messages can be from different backgrounds, depending on the local community.
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data and act on it and design their own solutions and decide on their own priorities." Despite differences between cultures, some overarching values connect people globally and would be beneficial to public health officials to use as they create interventions, Bahri noted. She explained that one such value is that people want the best health for their families, children, and communities, but how they achieve and perceive this differs depending on culture.
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From page 57... ...
She explained that the need for increased health literacy within the general population, which would lead to a better understanding of how vaccines work and the risk–benefit calculation that is made for any medical intervention, such as birth control pills. Finally, Larson added how difficult it is to bridge the micro and macro contexts when communicating with the public regarding negative side effects.
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How do we govern the industry? In response to these increasingly complex questions, EMA began including contextualizing explanations in its outcome documents, leading to positive feedback from the journalist community, Bahri reported.
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From page 59... ...
However, people's behavior and the decisions that they make are "either forgotten or they're an afterthought or they're perceived to be just really, really complex and [an] obstruction." Guirguis noted that to create effective interventions, public health officials need to understand why people make the seemingly irrational decisions that they do and how culture and context plays an important part in the decision-making process.
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