Trends in risk communication for public health threats: From the Boston Marathon Bombing to Ebola

Background:  Risk communication involves translating complex or technical information into language that can be easily understood by the masses.  The goal should always be to put the risk associated with a situation into perspective.  The goal of this study is to summarize and explore success and failures in risk communication as it relates to environmental public health.  In any given public health situation, whether it is a disease outbreak or environmental release, public health officials have one chance to be relevant and to gain the public's trust.  Many factors go into the success (or failure) of that one chance.  Including risk communication in Incident Response Plans is crucial.  In order for it to be effective, it must be planned for and practiced.  Another key factor is establishing relationships with traditional media.  They are the 'mouthpiece' that will disseminate information that you provided to them.  Another increasingly important tool in the field of public health response is social media.

Methods:  Review public health responses, media, and social media coverage of public health events during the past 5 years to identify (1) topics receiving media coverage; and (2) relative risk of the topic compared to the coverage received and (3) the perceived success or failure of risk communication.

Results: Comprehensive information will be tabulated in categories.

Conclusion:  Communicating risk is largely equivalent to communicating uncertainty.  But just because it is hard, does not mean that we shouldn't do it. This study will be able to provide analyzed case studies demonstrating successes and failures to public health officials who engage in the challenges of risk communication(s).