Public health authorities should involve the clinical and laboratory community and engage the local community in vector control and case reporting.
Background The Ebola communication crisis of 2014 generated widespread fear and attention among Western news media, social media users, and members of the United States (US) public. Health communicators need more information on misinformation and the social media environment during a fear-inducing disease outbreak to improve communication practices. The purpose of this study was to describe the content of Ebola-related tweets with a specific focus on misinformation, political content, health related content, risk framing, and rumors. Methods We examined tweets from a random 1% sample of all tweets published September 30th - October 30th, 2014, filtered for English-language tweets mentioning “Ebola” in the content or hashtag, that had at least 1 retweet (N = 72,775 tweets). A randomly selected subset of 3639 (5%) tweets were evaluated for inclusion. We analyzed the 3113 tweets that meet inclusion criteria using public health trained human coders to assess tweet characteristics (joke, opinion, discord), veracity (true, false, partially false), political context, risk frame, health context, Ebola specific messages, and rumors. We assessed the proportion of tweets with specific content using descriptive statistics and chi-squared tests. Results Of non-joke tweets, 10% of Ebola-related tweets contained false or partially false information. Twenty-five percent were related to politics, 28% contained content that provoked reader response or promoted discord, 42% contained risk elevating messages and 72% were related to health. The most frequent rumor mentioned focused on government conspiracy. When comparing tweets with true information to tweets with misinformation, a greater percentage of tweets with misinformation were political in nature (36% vs 15%) and contained discord-inducing statements (45% vs 10%). Discord-inducing statements and political messages were both significantly more common in tweets containing misinformation compared with those without(p < 0.001). Conclusions Results highlight the importance of anticipating politicization of disease outbreaks, and the need for policy makers and social media companies to build partnerships and develop response frameworks in advance of an event. While each public health event is different, our findings provide insight into the possible social media environment during a future epidemic and could help optimize potential public health communication strategies.
The 2009 H1N1 pandemic stimulated a nationwide response that included a mass vaccination effort coordinated at the federal, state, and local levels. This article examines a sampling of state and local efforts during the pandemic in order to better prepare for future public health emergencies involving mass distribution, dispensing, and administration of medical countermeasures. In this analysis, the authors interviewed national, state, and local leaders to gain a better understanding of the accomplishments and challenges of H1N1 vaccination programs during the 2009-10 influenza season. State and local health departments distributed and administered H1N1 vaccine using a combination of public and private efforts. Challenges encountered during the vaccination campaign included the supply of and demand for vaccine, prioritization strategies, and local logistics. To improve the response capabilities to deal with infectious disease emergencies, the authors recommend investing in technologies that will assure a more timely availability of the needed quantities of vaccine, developing local public health capacity and relationships with healthcare providers, and enhancing federal support of state and local activities. The authors support in principle the CDC recommendation to vaccinate annually all Americans over 6 months of age against seasonal influenza to establish a standard of practice on which to expand the ability to vaccinate during a pandemic. However, expanding seasonal influenza vaccination efforts will be an expensive and long-term investment that will need to be weighed against anticipated benefits and other public health needs. Such investments in public health infrastructure could be important for building capacity and practice for distributing, dispensing, and administering countermeasures in response to a future pandemic or biological weapons attack.
News media have been blamed for sensationalizing Ebola in the United States, causing unnecessary alarm. To investigate this issue, we analyzed US-focused news stories about Ebola virus disease during July 1–November 30, 2014. We found frequent use of risk-elevating messages, which may have contributed to increased public concern.
The work is transparent, motivates ongoing refinements, and identifies areas for improved measurements. After validation, such a model can be used to identify effective investments to enhance community resilience. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:127-137).
Conditions that facilitate sustained dengue transmission exist in the United States, and outbreaks have occurred during the past decade in Texas, Hawaii, and Florida. More outbreaks can also be expected in years to come. To combat dengue, medical and public health practitioners in areas with mosquito vectors that are competent to transmit the virus must be aware of the threat of reemergent dengue, and the need for early reporting and control to reduce the impact of dengue outbreaks. Comprehensive dengue control includes human and vector surveillance, vector management programs, and community engagement efforts. Public health, medical, and vector-control communities must collaborate to prevent and control disease spread. Policy makers should understand the role of mosquito abatement and community engagement in the prevention and control of the disease.
Over the past decade, community engagement has become a central tenet of US federal doctrine on public health emergency preparedness. Little is known, however, about how the vision of a ready, aware, and involved populace has translated into local practice, or which conditions thus far have advanced community involvement in what is typically considered the province of government authorities and emergency professionals. In 2011-12, to help close that knowledge gap, investigators carried out semistructured qualitative interviews with practitioners (N = 25) from 7 local health departments about which conditions have advanced or inhibited community engagement in public health emergency preparedness. Among the organizational factors identified as enabling local health departments' involvement of community residents and groups in emergency preparedness were a supportive agency leadership and culture, sufficient staffing and programmatic funding, interested and willing partners, and external triggers such as federal grants and disaster experiences that spotlighted the importance of community relationships to effective response. Facing budget and staff cuts, local health departments feel increasingly constrained in efforts to build trusted and lasting preparedness ties with community partners. At the same time, some progress in preparedness partnerships may be possible in the context of agency leadership, culture, and climate that affirms the value of collaboration with the community.
News media plays a large role in the information the public receives during an infectious disease outbreak, and may influence public knowledge and perceptions of risk. This study analyzed and described the content of U.S. news media coverage of Zika virus and Zika response during 2016. A random selection of 800 Zika-related news stories from 25 print and television news sources was analyzed. The study examined 24 different messages that appeared in news media articles and characterized them using theories of risk perception as messages with characteristics that could increase perception of risk (risk-elevating messages; n = 14), messages that could decrease perception of risk (risk-minimizing messages; n = 8), or messages about travel or testing guidance (n = 2). Overall, 96% of news stories in the study sample contained at least one or more risk-elevating message(s) and 61% contained risk-minimizing message(s). The frequency of many messages changed after local transmission was confirmed in Florida, and differed between sources in locations with or without local transmission in 2016. Forty percent of news stories included messages about negative potential outcomes of Zika virus infection without mentioning ways to reduce risk. Findings from this study may help inform current federal, state, and local Zika responses by offering a detailed analysis of how news media are covering the outbreak and response activities as well as identifying specific messages appearing more or less frequently than intended. Findings identifying the types of messages that require greater emphasis may also assist public health communicators in responding more effectively to future outbreaks.
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