Health Communication最新文献

This study focuses on the lessons and challenges related to achieving an inclusive, equitable and effective risk communication and community engagement response to a pandemic, such as COVID-19. Challenges and lessons are examined in the context of an innovative model of partnership, collaboration, and coordination, which was piloted by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN). Coordination is an ongoing challenge in pandemic response given the diverse and dispersed number of groups involved. The article describes specific tools and procedures that were used to create a coordinated response, and lessons learned about coordination during the pandemic and beyond. The key lessons are as follows: coordinated support for community-led responses requires a systemic approach and long-term investments; regional platforms are most effective when demand-driven and accountable to national response teams; strengthening "data for action" capacity relies on collective efforts across sectors for better decision-making; and affected people do not separate crises - responses should be holistic and adaptable. This analysis suggests that these strategies can promote a more coordinated and effective response to health crises.

This analysis reviews articles appearing in the special issue of Health Communication, "WHO Risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) lessons learned from COVID-19" through a lens of previous RCCE research and their implications for future practice. The successes and challenges presented by the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters, regions, and partners are compared to recommendations and conclusions of the most recent WHO RCCE guideline, Communicating risk during public health emergencies: A WHO guideline for emergency risk communication (ERC) policy and practice. The Guideline includes the only official WHO evidence-based recommendations for RCCE practice, based on meta-syntheses of relevant literature through 2015. This analysis considered whether RCCE interventions undertaken during COVID-19 added strength to previous recommendations, filled evidence gaps, contradicted or added nuance to endorsements and conclusions, or pointed RCCE in new directions for future practice.

Exchanges between the research and practice communities can generate important lessons for both. This effort to generate lessons learned from the risk communication and community engagement practitioners at the WHO provides insights from the lived experiences of those on the front lines of the global COVID-19 response. Learning from the practice community is positioned as an important process to understanding the decisions about communication strategy, adaptation and impact.

After-Action Reviews (AARs) have become essential tools for organizational learning and development, particularly in post-crisis contexts such as public health emergencies. This study examines the processes, characteristics, and challenges of AARs, focusing on their application during the COVID-19 pandemic. We conceptualize AARs as communication processes that enact, encode, and disseminate lessons learned, contributing to organizational resilience and innovation. By analyzing a sample of COVID-19 AARs from various organizations, we explore the variability in AAR form, structure, and content across different organizational levels. Our findings reveal consistent themes in assessment and recommendations, particularly emphasizing the importance of communication, coordination, and inclusive planning for vulnerable populations. Results highlight the significance of AARs as tools for translating crisis experiences into actionable insights for future pandemic preparedness and response.

In this study, normatively responsible advocacy is proposed as a primary objective of instructional risk and crisis communication during health-related crises and high-risk events. The World Health Organization's learning interventions provided to communities and countries during the COVID-19 pandemic serve as a case study. The case study emphasized phronesis in assessing the capacity for normatively responsible advocacy in instructional risk and crisis communication to promote social justice. The case study revealed the recommendations provided in the World Health Organization's, WHO implementation guidance on emergencies capacity-building: Approaches for just-in-time learning response to health emergencies, are fitting with the four tenets of normatively responsible advocacy in instructional risk and crisis communication: (1) balancing cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning; (2) improvisation in designing instructional content; (3) agility in distribution of instructional content; and (4) meeting the normative needs and expectations of diverse audiences.

This article provides an overview of the risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) initiative led by the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean and the Regional RCCE Interagency Working Group for the academic year 2020-2021. The initiative's primary objective was to facilitate a safe return to school amid the complexities of the COVID-19 pandemic. It provided guidance and resources designed to benefit a wide range of audiences, including children and their caregivers (e.g. parents, guardians, teachers, administrators and others). Emphasizing health and well-being, the initiative transcended academics to address emotional support and effective communication. Key components of the initiative included a multi-faceted approach that involved social listening, coordination and language adaptation, all informed by extensive research. Social media played a pivotal role in disseminating critical information and engaging diverse audiences. Challenges faced, such as resource constraints and limited access to remote communities, underscored the importance of resource allocation, a robust RCCE framework, digital inclusion, flexible communication strategies, and rigorous monitoring and evaluation. The lessons drawn from this initiative serve as a blueprint for future pandemic preparedness and response efforts. Collaboration, knowledge-sharing and the integration of RCCE and social media into strategies are paramount. In the diverse and challenging Eastern Mediterranean Region, these insights will continue to guide efforts to protect public health and community well-being. Moreover, these lessons transcend regional boundaries, offering global relevance and potential to enhance pandemic preparedness and response worldwide.

Declining trust in public health organizations has (not coincidentally) coincided with a rise in health misinformation on social media. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) strategically employed corrective communications to counter common misinformation as an important aspect of its risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) efforts. Whereas past research focuses mainly on the ability of corrections to reduce misperceptions, we turn attention to the broader question of whether and how they affect perceptions of the WHO. We analyze an online survey experiment (N = 1343) with a 2 × 2 design: correction approach (preemptive vs. responsive) × source (WHO vs. user) as compared to a control condition. Results suggest that the corrective infographic significantly improved public approval of the WHO's communication efforts and its credibility, but only when it was shared by a WHO information bot in direct response to a misinformation post. Interestingly, these same benefits did not accrue to the WHO when a social media user shared the WHO's graphics. Moreover, individuals initially critical of the WHO's performance increased their ratings of the WHO's credibility after seeing the corrective infographic from the WHO. The findings inform WHO's future RCCE efforts during a crisis and also highlight the potential of AI-driven bots affiliated with expert organizations to support corrective efforts.

Rumors and misinformation can escalate to the level of an infodemic and significantly complicate public health efforts to disseminate accurate information and promote understanding. Like other parts of the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, the WHO South-East Asia Region had its share of this challenge. This paper reports on the joint WHO South-East Asia and AMARC Asia Pacific program titled, Building resilient communities against COVID-19: Responding to fake news and misinformation through community radios in Asia Pacific, or simply, the Community Radio Project. This initiative involved examining the landscape of rumors and misinformation circulating in the Region and designing a corresponding online training for community radio journalists, with the aim to strengthen their capacities in managing infodemics. The project also included the rollout of a short mentorship program, as well as the building of an online bank of resources where various tools had been made available to support community radio practitioners in tackling rumors and misinformation. Mixed-method assessment was used to examine the online training component of the Community Radio Project 2 years after its implementation. A majority of the respondents confirmed that the 2022 training contents had helped them and that their respective radio stations had been taking action to help address misinformation spreading in the localities. Additional capacity building, strengthening networks and resources, and research will enhance community radio's ability to address infodemics.

As an unavoidable topic for humankind, mentioning death is considered disrespectful and unlucky in Asia. Refusing to discuss death could lead to unhealthy perspectives about the topic and could negatively impact sociocultural well-being. Instead of face-to-face discussions about death, posting and sharing about personal views on the topic in social media could provide a more acceptable approach in such societies, as social media platforms have gradually become spaces for health-related discussions and information. With few studies which have examined how death topic discourse is occurring in Asia, there is clearly a gap in understanding how this facet of health communication is being narrated in Asia's digital societies and theoretically grounding insights. Understanding how people discuss and perceive death on social media can have significant values in health and palliative education and policy shaping death perspectives. We applied two-round text-based analysis of 540 responses to death-related questions on Zhihu, a popular Q&A platform with mainly young users in China. Results revealed that although death topics were becoming more common in social media discourse, death as a topic was still perceived by many with negative affective responses. Religion also appears to influence discourse. Consistent with the Confucianism and Buddhist's view of life, subgroups of users also depicted death as natural, causal, and cyclic process in life. The perceptions of death as meaning reflections pervade the responses. Respondents reflected on the meaning of life to be "fulfillment of oneself because death is inevitable." Others interpreted the meaning of relationships through narrations about the death of loved ones and friends. Some explored the meaning of existence by stating that "death proofs that we have ever existed." The theme corresponds to Social Constructionist Model of Grieving where individuals generate and appropriate meaning through the grief of death. Our findings revealed meaning-making as an essential component in the perspectives of death in China. Death taboo has been softened in social media, and young adults can reflect on death from a scientific and philosophical stance. Chinese death education should facilitate active death discussion and assist meaning-making process through reflective thinking about death. The findings provide implications and recommendations for palliative care education and clinical doctor-patient communications pertaining to rapport building and intra-family health communication.

This research explores the connection between health belief constructs and consumers' intention to seek help for their health, specifically mental health. It employs storytelling as a health-communication method, incorporating narrative transportation into the conceptual model to underscore the impact of various formats used in public service announcements. An online experimental study (n = 251) conducted through a crowdsourcing platform compared visual and audio narratives with audio-only narratives. Data analysis through PLS-SEM and ANOVA revealed that both video and audio narratives were equally effective, but narrative transportation was a stronger mediator for video. This is because video combines visual and auditory elements, creating a more engaging and vivid experience that enhances the viewer's emotional and cognitive involvement in the narrative. The combination of moving images, sound, and sometimes text in videos can lead to a higher level of transportation, making the story more persuasive and impactful compared to audio alone, which relies solely on sound to convey the narrative. The findings show that health promotion messages through videos can transport people through an immersive experience of being absorbed into a story.