Oral

Effective communication with the public concerning threats to their health requires an understanding of the audience. This session will cover a breadth of topics relating to risk communication. With the flu pandemic continuing to threaten the health of people nationally and worldwide, studies examining the public's concerns about avian flu and factors associated with support for probable government actions in a flu pandemic will be discussed. Also included in this session is a description of the process and model used for adapting and testing Western principles of emergency risk communication in a pilot test in China, and the outcomes of that training and testing. Certain populations require additional assistance in the case of tragedies. This session will present approaches to how individuals among the Southern poor respond to multiple risks and how CDC ECS communication efforts, which plays an integral role in ensuring CDC reaches diverse audiences with rapid, effective, and consistent emergency communication, can be developed, maintained and evaluated for those who are hard of hearing, deaf and deaf-blind.

Session Objectives: At the end of the session, the participant will be able to: (1) Understand challenges in reaching diverse populations during health emergencies; (2) Discuss strategies for implementing risk communication plans; (3) Define the nature of information seeking among poor audiences when responding to multiple health risks

CE Credits: CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing