Public health campaigns have been widely viewed as essential to changing human behavior and altering the course of an epidemic. Think of the “Let’s Stop HIV Together” campaign from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which relied on personal narratives to reduce stigma and encourage testing. Or the Truth Initiative’s anti-tobacco campaign featuring an unforgettable Marlboro Man video (the iconic cowboy sang through an electronic voice-box due to a laryngectomy).
Now, public health messaging is playing a role in helping to “flatten the curve” of the global pandemic, as people embrace a new term (“social distancing”) to stop the spread of the coronavirus. But the messaging around the pandemic lacks large-scale coordination and consistency so far, essential for a meaningful shift in behavior and beliefs.
Kate Christy, an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, studies persuasion research, looking at how organizations use stories to convince people to engage in health-related behaviors. She points out that effective public health campaigns take years of planning, testing, research and evaluation.
This is one reason why we are not seeing a strong nationwide public health campaign around COVID-19, she says. Instead, states, organizations and institutions tasked with keeping people safe are creating their own messaging, drawing on the latest guidelines from sources like the CDC.
“Uncertainty about this disease is really, really high,” says Christy. “There are so many things that even medical science isn’t sure about.”
While coordination might be lacking, information (and misinformation) is not. People are being exposed to constant messaging, Christy says, and they’re getting it through emails, workplaces, news outlets, researchers, scientists, medical doctors, the government, and (especially) social media.
“People are getting really overwhelmed,” she says. “And all that is doing is increasing anxiety and fear.”
Fear can cause people to shut down or give up. The best approach for any organization right now is to “communicate what you can do, how you can do it, and why it’s going to be effective,” according to Christy. People need to feel they are able to engage in the recommended behavior (a concept known as “self-efficacy.”) They also need to believe that the recommended solution or pattern of behavior is effective and that it will have the desired impact. That’s “response efficacy.”
UW-Madison has disseminated a social media toolkit for its departments and units to use in communicating health messaging with students, faculty and staff. One sample post:
This is a great example of communication that is not fear-based, Christy says. “It answers the audience question—will this help?—with a clear yes.”
Sijia Yang, also an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, hopes that people will tolerate the uncertainty and corroborate what they’re hearing with other sources they trust.
“During a public emergency like this one, the public needs to understand that all the information is uncertain,” he says. “One example of that is the CDC health experts’ changing stance on wearing a mask in public settings. Not long ago, they were saying no mask necessary. Now, they say wear ‘cloth face coverings’. This change of recommendation is responding to new scientific evidence that shows transmission could occur even before people exhibit symptoms (asymptomatic transmission). But that is the nature of a public health crisis.”
Yang, who studies digital persuasive messaging in the public health realm, is part of a collaborative team working on a mobile-based app to counteract some of the common myths circulating around the coronavirus. The strategy includes short, “corrective” narratives that emphasize positive messages rather than frightening ones, to improve the chances for successful correction. The app will also allow people to engage in social conversations, offering a place to show support for one another, according to Yang. The research groups working on the app are affiliated with the Center for Health Enhancement Systems Studies, based in the School of Engineering, whose collaborators draw on research to develop technology that will help people cope with health challenges, such as opioid addiction and cancer. SJMC faculty members and graduate students in the new Center for Communication and Civic Renewal in L&S are developing communications strategies to promote the app once it is released, aiming for wide and immediate dissemination among various communities, civic groups, and vulnerable populations in the state of Wisconsin. The effort is unfolding as part of the Wisconsin Partnership Program in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.
For her part, Christy is pondering what comes after the pandemic. She would like to see some public messaging emerge fairly soon around “reconstruction.”
“At some point, this is going to be over. There are things we can do to help people and we should be communicating what those things could look like,” she says.