Background On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to be a pandemic. This posed challenges to many countries, prominent among which is communication with the public to gain their cooperation. Israel faces different challenges from other countries in its management of the COVID-19 crisis because it is in the midst of a deep constitutional crisis. Objective The objective of this paper was to examine the response of the Israeli public to the government’s emergency instructions regarding the pandemic in terms of correlations between overall risk perception and crisis management; overall risk perception and economic threat perception; crisis management and compliance with behavioral guidelines; and crisis management and economic threat perception. We also made comparisons between crisis management and spokesperson credibility and between crisis management and the credibility of information sources. Methods The sample was established using an online survey that enabled rapid and effective distribution of an online questionnaire during the COVID-19 crisis. The self-selection online survey method of nonprobability sampling was used to recruit participants (N=1056) through social network posts asking the general public (aged ≥18 years) to answer the survey. Results Participants aged ≥65 years perceived higher personal risk compared to those aged 18-30 years (mean difference 0.33, 95% CI 0.04-0.61) and those aged 46-64 years (mean difference 0.38, 95% CI 0.12-0.64). Significant correlations were found between overall risk perception and attitudes toward crisis management (r=0.19, P<.001), overall risk perception and economic threat perception (r=0.22, P<.001), attitudes toward crisis management and compliance with behavioral guidelines (r=0.15, P<.001), and attitudes toward crisis management and economic threat perception (r=–0.15, P<.001). Participants who perceived that the prime minister was the most credible spokesperson evaluated the crisis management significantly higher than all other groups. The crisis management was evaluated significantly lower by participants who stated that infectious disease specialists were the most credible spokespersons. Participants for whom the Ministry of Health website was the most credible source of information evaluated the crisis management higher than all other groups. Participants for whom scientific articles were the most credible source of information evaluated the crisis management lower than those who perceived that the WHO/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention websites or Ministry of Health/hospital websites and health care workers were the most credible. Conclusions The higher the public trust and evaluation of crisis management, the greater the compliance of the public with guidelines. It was also found that crisis management and information cannot be approached in the same way for the overall public. Furthermore, unlike other epidemics, the COVID-19 crisis has widespread economic and social consequences; therefore, it is impossible to focus only on health risks without communicating economic and social risks as well.

BackgroundDuring epidemic crises, some of the information the public receives on social media is misinformation. Health organizations are required to respond and correct the information to gain the public’s trust and influence it to follow the recommended instructions.Objectives(1) To examine ways for health organizations to correct misinformation concerning the measles vaccination on social networks for two groups: pro-vaccination and hesitant; (2) To examine the types of reactions of two subgroups (pro-vaccination, hesitant) to misinformation correction; and (3) To examine the effect of misinformation correction on these two subgroups regarding reliability, satisfaction, self-efficacy and intentions.MethodsA controlled experiment with participants divided randomly into two conditions. In both experiment conditions a dilemma was presented as to sending a child to kindergarten, followed by an identical Facebook post voicing the children mothers’ concerns. In the third stage the correction by the health organization is presented differently in two conditions: Condition 1 –common information correction, and Condition 2 –recommended (theory-based) information correction, mainly communicating information transparently and addressing the public’s concerns. The study included (n = 243) graduate students from the Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences at Haifa University.ResultsA statistically significant difference was found in the reliability level attributed to information correction by the Health Ministry between the Control condition and Experimental condition (sig<0.001), with the average reliability level of the subjects in Condition 2 (M = 5.68) being considerably higher than the average reliability level of subjects in Condition 1 (4.64). A significant difference was found between Condition 1 and Condition 2 (sig<0.001), with the average satisfaction from the Health Ministry’s response of Condition 2 subjects (M = 5.75) being significantly higher than the average satisfaction level of Condition 1 subjects (4.66). Similarly, when we tested the pro and hesitant groups separately, we found that both preferred the response presented in Condition 2.ConclusionIt is very important for the organizations to correct misinformation transparently, and to address the emotional aspects for both the pro-vaccination and the hesitant groups. The pro-vaccination group is not a captive audience, and it too requires a full response that addresses the public's fears and concerns.

Background In the new media age, the public searches for information both online and offline. Many studies have examined how the public reads and understands this information but very few investigate how people assess the quality of journalistic articles as opposed to information generated by health professionals. Objective The aim of this study was to examine how public health care workers (HCWs) and the general public seek, read, and understand health information and to investigate the criteria by which they assess the quality of journalistic articles. Methods A Web-based nonprobability sampling questionnaire survey was distributed to Israeli HCWs and members of the public via 3 social media outlets: Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. A total of 979 respondents participated in the online survey via the Qualtrics XM platform. Results The findings indicate that HCWs find academic articles more reliable than do members of the general public (44.4% and 28.4%, respectively, P <.001). Within each group, we found disparities between the places where people search for information and the sources they consider reliable. HCWs consider academic articles to be the most reliable, yet these are not their main information sources. In addition, HCWs often use social networks to search for information (18.2%, P <.001), despite considering them very unreliable (only 2.2% found them reliable, P <.001). The same paradoxes were found among the general public, where 37.5% ( P <.001) seek information via social networks yet only 8.4% ( P <.001) find them reliable. Out of 6 quality criteria, 4 were important both to HCWs and to the general public. Conclusions In the new media age where information is accessible to all, the quality of articles about health is of critical importance. It is important that the criteria examined in this research become the norm in health writing for all stakeholders who write about health, whether they are professional journalists or citizen journalists writing in the new media.

Background The coronavirus brought the world’s leaders to the center of the media stage, where they not only managed the COVID-19 pandemic but also communicated it to the public. The means they used to communicate the global pandemic reveal their strategies and the narratives they chose to create in their nation’s social consciousness. In Israel, the crisis broke out after three election cycles, such that the government in charge of the crisis was an interim government under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was operating under three criminal indictments. This study sought to examine the ways in which Prime Minister Netanyahu and two senior Israel Ministry of Health officials—Director General Moshe Bar Siman Tov and Prof. Sigal Sadetsky, Head of Public Health Services—communicated information about the health crisis in Israel during what has been termed the first wave and the beginning of the second wave. Methods and Sample The research adopted qualitative methods (discourse, content and thematic analysis) to analyze the communication strategies and compare them to health and risk communication. Triangulated data collection from different data sources was used to increase the credibility and validity of the results. The research sample comprised the following sources from March 3 through June 21, 2020: transcripts of 19 press conferences and 12 press interviews, 95 emergency regulations signed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, and 52 articles in major Israeli newspapers. Results Netanyahu and the Health Ministry Director General used an apocalyptic narrative to communicate COVID-19 to the public. The main strategies used in constructing this narrative were intimidation, lack of information transparency, giving the public conflicting instructions contrary to the health and risk communicating approach, and using a health crisis to promote political intentions and actions. Conclusion Communicating health crises to the public, particularly ongoing crises like COVID-19, requires that leaders implement the health and risk communication approach and create a cooperative narrative that does not rely on a strategy of intimidation, but rather on empathy and on fact-based and transparent information.

Background The uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 crisis and the different approaches taken to manage it have triggered scientific controversies among experts. This study seeks to examine how the fragile nature of Israeli democracy accommodated differences of opinion between experts during the COVID-19 crisis. Objective To map and analyze the discourse between experts surrounding issues that were the topic of scientific controversy. To examine the viewpoints of the public regarding the positions of the different experts. Methods and Sample A sequential mixed study design. The qualitative research was a discourse analysis of 435 items that entailed mapping the voices of different experts regarding controversial topics. In the quantitative study, a total of 924 participants answered a questionnaire examining topics that engendered differences of opinion between the experts. Results The results showed that there was no dialogue between opposition and coalition experts. Moreover, the coalition experts labeled the experts who criticized them as “coronavirus deniers” and “anti-vaxxers.” The coalition changed its opinion on one issue only—the issue of lockdowns. When we asked the public how they see the scientific controversy between the coalition and the opposition experts, they expressed support for opposition policies on matters related to the implications of the lockdowns and to transparency, while supporting government policy mainly on topics related to vaccinations. The research findings also indicate that personal and socio-demographic variables can influence how the public responds to the debate between experts. The main differentiating variables were the personal attribute of conservatism, locus of control, age, and nationality. Conclusion Controversy must be encouraged to prevent misconceptions. The internal discourse in the committees that advise the government must be transparent, and coalition experts must be consistently exposed to the views of opposition experts, who must be free to voice their views without fear.