The effectiveness of disaster risk communication: a systematic review of intervention studies

Priming close social contact protective behaviors enhances protective social norms perceptions, protection views, and self-protective behaviors during disasters

Many people do not make choices that minimize risk in the face of health and environmental threats. Using pre-registered analyses, we tested whether a risk communication that primed perceptions about health-protective preparation and behavior of close social contacts promoted protection views and protective behaviors. From December 10-24, 2020, we fielded a 2 (threat vignette: wildfire or COVID-19) x 3 (social contact prime: control, inaction, or action) experiment to a representative sample of 1,108 California residents facing increased COVID-19 cases/deaths, who had recently experienced the most destructive wildfire season in California history. Outcome variables were protection views and protective behavior (i.e., information seeking). Across threat conditions, stronger social norms, efficacy, and worry predicted greater protection views and some protective behaviors. Priming social-contact action resulted in greater COVID-19 information-seeking compared to the control. In the wildfire smoke condition, priming social contact action and inaction increased perceived protective behavior social norms compared to the control; social norms partially mediated the relationships of priming with protection views and protective behaviors; and having existing mask supplies enhanced the relationship between priming inaction and greater protection views compared to priming action or the control. Findings highlight the importance of social influence for health protection views and protective behaviors. Communications enhancing social norms that are sensitive to resource contexts may help promote protective behaviors.

Introductory Disaster Training for Aspiring Teachers: A Pilot Study

Schools may serve as shelters after a disaster in many countries, including Japan. However, teachers are unaware of the need to balance education and shelter management responsibilities under such circumstances. To promote teachers’ awareness of the post-disaster school situation, this study developed an introductory training for aspiring teachers and investigated its effectiveness. A total of 143 students aspiring to become teachers participated in this simulative training and answered pre- and post-intervention questionnaires. The participants’ vocabulary and word usage were also evaluated. The mean participant scores for the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains increased significantly after the training compared with the pre-training scores. The training was also associated with the aggregation of word usage, which may facilitate communication with representatives of multiple occupations. The findings indicate that a developed training may help aspiring teachers better understand their responsibilities after a disaster and prepare them for such situations.

Creating effective, evidence-based video communication of public health science (the COVCOM study): Protocol for a sequential mixed methods effect study (Preprint)

Background

The nonlinear nature of contagious diseases and the potential for exponential growth can be difficult to grasp for the general public. This has strong implications for public health communication, which needs to be both easily accessible and efficient. A pandemic is an extreme situation, and the accompanying strict societal measures are generally easier to accept if one understands the underlying reasoning behind them. Bringing about informed attitude change and achieving compliance to strict restrictions requires explanations of scientific concepts and terminologies that laypersons can understand.

Objective

The aim of the project is to develop effective, evidence-based modes of video communication for translating complex, but important, health messages about pandemics to both the general population and decision makers. The study uses COVID-19 as a case to learn and prepare society for handling the ongoing and future pandemics, as well as to provide evidence-based tools for the science communication toolbox.

Methods

The project applies a mixed methods design, combining qualitative methods (eg, interviews, observational studies, literature reviews) and quantitative methods (eg, randomized controlled trials [RCTs]). The project brings together researchers from a wide range of academic fields, as well as communication industry professionals.

Results

This study has received funding from the Trond Mohn Foundation through the Research Council of Norway’s “COVID-19 Emergency Call for Proposals” March 2020. Recruitment and data collection for the exploratory first phase of the project ran from February 2021 to March 2021. Creative communication work started in May 2021, and the production of videos for use in the RCTs in the final phase of the project started in September 2021.

Conclusions

The COVCOM project will take on several grand challenges within the field of communicating science and provide evidence-based tools to the science communication toolbox. A long-term goal of the project is to contribute to the creation of a more resilient health care system by developing communication responses tailormade for different audiences, preparing society for any future pandemic.

International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)

DERR1-10.2196/34275

Medical education and COVID-19 pandemic: a crisis management model towards an evolutionary pathway

The COVID-19 crisis has had a profound effect on higher education, especially medical education due to its sensitive nature, dealing with people's life and wellbeing. This study presented a crisis management model of how to direct medical education during crises. A qualitative design was used via a focus group among 83 medical education administrators at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. Four major challenges emerged regarding medical education during the COVID-19 pandemic including "The health and wellbeing of faculty members and students"; "Spatial constraints"; "Time constraints", and "Access to resources". A total of 13 strategies were suggested to tackle the challenges, including virtualization, technological support, empowerment, participation, sharing, helping, integration, compression, omission, flexibility and diversity, severance, protection; and monitoring. For a sustainable educational pathway in medical education, personalized approach to education via the incorporation of technology is essential. This provides opportunities to tackle the issues caused by the crisis, by provision of any time and anywhere approach to education via flexible technologies/platforms adjusted based on the audiences. The scope of crisis management expands not only on individual and academic levels but also on social and global relations.

Basic Training of Teachers and Public Health Nurses for Communication with Residents for Smooth Shelter Management: A Pilot Study

In Japan, schools are commonly used as disaster evacuation centers. Teachers have evacuation center management roles; however, there is no established training for teachers to balance their management roles and teaching activities. We evaluated the effectiveness of simulation training that we designed to help teachers fulfill their roles in disaster situations while minimizing educational interruptions. A total of 42 teachers completed pre- and post-simulation questionnaires. Qualitative data were collected based on their free-response evaluations. The average scores showed significant increases in the cognitive (p < 0.001), affective, (p = 0.001), and psychomotor (p < 0.001) domains. The participants expressed acceptance of the others, confirmation of evacuation center rules, and a capacity to handle personal information. The study displayed what had happened at the shelters, and highlighted consensus building and job conflicts among the evacuees. Participating teachers learned a clear idea of what would happen in the workplace if it became a shelter after a disaster. They were accepting evacuating residents to their workplace and understood that cooperation was essential to ensure the education and safety of their school children.

Communication vs evidence: What hinders the outreach of science during an infodemic? A narrative review

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic is placing significant pressure on national and international health organizations and the measures taken to combat it are having many impacts beyond health. At the same time, misleading communication practices and what has been called an “infodemic” by the World Health Organization have been hampering the uptake of coronavirus-related scientific information. Moreover, public awareness about the dangers of the infodemic remains poor, and misinformation may lead to hazardous behaviours. We therefore analysed factors potentially undermining communication of scientific evidence and proposed strategies to counteract this phenomenon.

Methods

We sought official academic and institutional publications of any type, published in English and analyzed their approaches to communication used during the pandemic.

Results

The factors that might undermine appropriate communication include but are not limited to (a) the exponential increase of COVID-19-related publications, often including biases in the peer-review and editorial process; (b) the role of traditional media; (c) politicization of the virus; and (d) the impact of social media. We argue that evidence synthesis and knowledge translation are useful tools to communicate accurate scientific evidence to decision-makers.

Conclusion

Clear and concise messages in this form can help decision-makers to interpret data correctly, take consequent actions, and avoid being compromised by low-quality or even misleading information.

Flood risk perceptions and coping capacities among the retired population, with implications for risk communication: A study of residents in a north Wales coastal town, UK

Flood risk communication strategies have been ineffective for older adults as they have failed to accommodate diversity, viewing retired populations as homogenous. There have been calls from academics and NGOs to develop more detailed understandings of older adults' risk experiences to inform disaster risk reduction (DRR) and communication approaches. We conducted in-depth interviews with twelve members of the retired population, of which the majority happened to be members of a local church, in a flood risk area of north Wales, UK, in 2018 to ascertain risk perceptions, coping capacities, and risk communication preferences to inform more age-centred approaches. Results present retired population are a diverse group with varying perceptions and capacities. While personal risk perceptions were low overall, coping capacities varied and were primarily social in nature, which can be sustained despite mobility or other limitations typical of older age. Participants expressed preference for traditional/interpersonal risk communication methods, such as telephone calls or home visits. A key recommendation from this study is that risk communication and DRR practices should adopt people-centric approaches that are co-produced and respect the differentiated vulnerabilities, capacities and needs of at-risk populations. This study and its findings are important is providing a more nuanced picture of the vulnerabilities and capacities of the particularly at-risk population of older adults. We must ensure that future DRR research, policies and practices focus on all experiences of at-risk populations, not only the dominant narratives or extremes of groups, to capture differences within groups' abilities to support more effective community DRR.

The Power of Radio to Promote Health and Resilience in Natural Disasters: A Review

Humanitarian radio has been used in humanitarian aid efforts and after natural disasters over the last 15 years. However, the effects have barely been evaluated, and there are few scientific reports on the impact of radio as a disaster health response intervention. Therefore, this study aimed to provide an overview of the use and impact of humanitarian radio in natural disasters from a health perspective. A literature review of 13 scientific papers and grey literature resources was conducted. The results show that humanitarian radio could be used to promote both physical and psychosocial wellbeing by providing health-related information, advice and psychosocial support in natural disasters. Community resilience can be enhanced by the promotion of community engagement and can strengthen self-efficacy and community efficacy. Radio also has the potential to cost-effectively reach a large number of affected people in areas with severely damaged infrastructure. Radio could, therefore, contribute to health recovery and wellbeing from both individual and community perspectives. As such, health professionals; crises communication professionals, including radio journalists; and disaster-managing stakeholders should be prepared and trained to use humanitarian radio as an integrated part of the disaster health response in natural disasters.

Planning of a Health Emergency Disaster Risk Management Programme for a Chinese Ethnic Minority Community

Rural populations living in poverty are the most vulnerable to disaster. Despite this increased risk of recurrent disaster, previous disaster experience is not a good predictor for disaster preparedness in these populations. This was evidenced on 31 August 2012, when a major flood occurred in Sichuan, China. A health needs assessment carried out in December 2012 showed that residents of Hongyan village, a Yi-minority community in Sichuan lacked disaster preparedness. This indicated that measures were necessary to improve Health Emergency Disaster Risk Management (Health-EDRM) in the community. Nutbeam's planning model for health promotion was used to guide the development of a Health-EDRM programme at Hongyan Village, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan. Relevant information was obtained from sources such as literature review, household surveys and stakeholder interviews. A team of stakeholders conducted an interactive workshop to train villagers on disaster preparedness in March 2014. Disaster kits and equipment for Oral Rehydration Solution preparation were handed out to villagers.

Health-Related Disaster Communication and Social Media: Mixed-Method Systematic Review

This mixed-method evidence synthesis drew on Cochrane methods and principles to systematically review literature published between 2003 and 2016 on the best social media practices to promote health protection and dispel misinformation during disasters. Seventy-nine studies employing quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods on risk communication during disasters in all UN-languages were reviewed, finding that agencies need to contextualize the use of social media for particular populations and crises. Social media are tools that still have not become routine practices in many governmental agencies regarding public health in the countries studied. Social media, especially Twitter and Facebook (and equivalents in countries such as China), need to be incorporated into daily operations of governmental agencies and implementing partners to build familiarity with them before health-related crises happen. This was especially observed in U.S. agencies, local government, and first responders but also for city governments and school administrations in Europe. For those that do use social media during health-related risk communication, studies find that public relations officers, governmental agencies, and the general public have used social media successfully to spread truthful information and to verify information to dispel rumors during disasters. Few studies focused on the recovery and preparation phases and on countries in the Southern hemisphere, except for Australia. The vast majority of studies did not analyze the demographics of social media users beyond their geographic location, their status of being inside/outside the disaster zone; and their frequency and content of posting. Socioeconomic demographics were not collected and/or analyzed to drill deeper into the implications of using social media to reach vulnerable populations. Who exactly is reached via social media campaigns and who needs to be reached with other means has remained an understudied area.

Household Preparedness and Preferred Communication Channels in Public Health Emergencies: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Residents in an Asian Developed Urban City

Disaster awareness and household preparedness are crucial for reducing the negative effects of a disaster. This study aims to examine the citizens' preparedness level in the event of a general disaster or outbreak of infectious disease and to identify suitable channels for community disease surveillance and risk communication. We used a stratified random design to conduct a digit-dialed telephone survey in Hong Kong during February 2014. Level of disaster preparedness was examined according to the possession of disaster kit items. Associations between socio-demographic factors and good household preparedness were assessed using multiple logistic regression models. Preferences for infectious disease surveillance were collected and analyzed. There were 1020 respondents. Over half of the respondents (59.2%) had good household preparedness. After adjustment, female respondents, having higher education and higher household income were significantly associated with good household preparedness. Television and telephone were the preferred channels to obtain and report infectious disease information, respectively. In conclusion, general and specific infectious-disease household preparedness levels in Hong Kong were generally good. Tailored preparedness programs targeted to specific communities are necessary for those lacking preparedness. Risk communication and public health surveillance should be conducted through television and telephone, respectively.

"To silence the deafening silence": Survivor's needs and experiences of the impact of disaster radio for their recovery after a natural disaster

In the aftermath of the Haiyan typhoon, disaster radio was used to spread information and music to the affected population. The study described survivors' experiences of being in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster and the impact disaster radio made on recovery from the perspective of the individuals affected. Twenty eight survivors were interviewed in focus groups and individual interviews analyzed with phenomenological-hermeneutic method. Being in disaster mode included physical and psychosocial dimensions of being in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. Several needs among the survivors were expressed. Disaster radio contributed to recovery by providing facts and information that helped the survivor to understand and adapt. The music played contributed to emotional endurance and reduced feelings of loneliness. To re-establish social contacts, other interventions are needed. Disaster radio is a positive contribution to the promotion of survivors' recovery after disasters involving a large number of affected people and severely damaged infrastructure. Further studies on the use and impact of disaster radio are needed.