Orchestrating a comprehensive communication strategy, including a risk communication component in order to prepare and inform stakeholders about a global issue as vital as a pandemic is a major challenge. This article provides a framework to guide the design, development and delivery of an integrated communication plan to address a pandemic.
This guide is by no means the final answer but acts as an enabler intended to stimulate your thinking around some fundamental elements of a pandemic communication plan. An essential ingredient to a risk communication approach should be to examine various communication products, analyze and manage the perceived risk by the public, and identify any information gaps with various stakeholders and target groups.
Key plan ingredients
In simple terms, there are three different stages where communication intersects with pandemic milestones along a timeline – in advance of activity, during, and post-activity. If you think of preparation in terms of prevention and promotion, communication has a major role to play in broad education, visibility and raising awareness. Think mass media campaign. Along this timeline, a network needs to be established to ensure information is delivered in a timely manner and that it maintains continuity and uniformity along the network paths that lead to connectivity with various local, regional, national and international established points of contact. Then, there are the subject matter experts such as epidemiologists (those who study how often diseases occur in different groups of people and why) who need to be consulted and who can provide technical and scientific data. Add in a media relations component and issues management strategy as well as a contact within the emergency services and healthcare providers. All these areas require extensive communication planning and coordination to enable information flow.
Communicating risk
The core of risk communication management involves the dissemination of timely and accurate information prior to and during the anticipated pandemic. This is a critical success factor in decision-making by stakeholders and includes advance preparation before the event. A blend of expert knowledge, including scientific and epidemiologic evidence, with stakeholder perceptions of risk, expectations and the needs of the various stakeholder groups, is a necessary and fundamental component at the core of developing a skilful risk communication strategy. This then leads to identifying information gaps that are indispensable for constructing messages and framing the storyline(s), or the risk issue(s), that will appeal to stakeholder priorities and interests. And since stakeholder decision-making is the key activity driven by communicating risks, it is the matching (through gap analysis) of what stakeholders consider useful combined with supporting statements about the nature of the risk, that's the most important ingredient in the risk communication mix.
The selection of communication channels and content depends entirely on stakeholder markets and what characterizes their interests and priorities to enable a desired response to the risk at hand. Therefore, it is important to recognize that all channels and products need to be pre-tested to ensure messaging has the potential to trigger desired outcomes. This is why advance preparation is so important.
Risk communication process
The strategic risk communication process is sequential, involves stakeholder consultation at every step and includes:
Define the opportunity
Using a multidisciplinary team develop an opportunity statement to outline the scope of the project and its outcomes. All relevant stakeholders should be identified. The statement should take a big picture approach and provide focus for a common understanding on the roll out of the project, its expected outcomes, evaluation, and deliverables.
Characterize the situation
It is important to recognize and identify the interests and priorities of both technical experts and stakeholders. Examine where gaps may exist. Inclusive discussions should take place leading to a clear understanding of stakeholder priorities and interests. All messages should be tested and refined, as required, to ensure the highest desired levels of understanding that will then lead to action.
Assess stakeholder perceptions of risks, benefits and tradeoffs
This step involves determining the roots of stakeholder beliefs in order to formulate a communication approach and content. Both formal and informal research methods are used to seek out stakeholders’ information needs, interests and priorities. Stakeholder ‘mental models’ are used to identify thinking patterns and associated ideas related to the risk issue. Compare stakeholder thinking and expert risk perceptions and available scientific data or knowledge. This will reveal knowledge gaps that can be potentially bridged by selecting the most suitable risk communication plan, including key messages, to affect the desired outcomes.
Assess how stakeholders perceive the options
Take into account the points-of-view of various stakeholder groups. This will help you to understand their tolerance limits, levels of acceptability, and how they judge the potential risk, its benefits or tradeoffs. Using this information and stakeholder research, risk communication outcomes are further defined.
Develop and pre-test strategies, risk communication plans and messages
Your proposed risk communication strategy, its plan and messages have been crafted from formal and informal research conducted on stakeholders’ ways of thinking. Pre-testing communication packages is crucial at this point.
Implement risk communication plans
Using the results from the pre-testing phase, communication material should be re-aligned as required, produced and distributed.
Evaluate risk communication effectiveness
The plan’s progress should be measured against stated communication objectives. Informal and formal research methods are used to evaluate the effectiveness of communication activities as well as the overall risk communication process. This is the cyclical activity of continuous improvement that typically allows you to modify or refine your communication plan if necessary.
Communications products
Depending on what will work best with your target groups, your research should tell you what they are most receptive to, what their literacy levels are and what channels they prefer to receive information. All of this plays into the selection of communication products including print publications, information packs, the internet, radio and television news, multi-media advertising campaigns, cooperative advertising and sponsorships, speaking engagements and group presentations.
Communications objectives
Your broad-based communication objectives can be refined to be more specific and measurable once a risk communication approach is finalized into a plan. Think in the following terms and refine as needed:
- To provide timely and accurate information on public health measures prior to the onset (preparation) and during the pandemic, primarily to minimize contracting.
- The illness (prevention) and secondly, to reduce disruption (mitigation) to the lives of residents/citizens/employees.
- Raise broad public awareness on a national level through a variety of media, partners and stakeholder communities.
- Limit public anxiety and misinformation, communicate with empathy, and help them gain an understanding of the risks to them to enable decision-making.
- Acknowledge the reality of the situation.
- Be available and ensure credibility with media.
- Commit to updates and continued communication with the public and stakeholders.
- Clearly state recommended actions.
- Identify sources of more information and listen to public feedback.
- Inform on prevention of the potential health-related risks associated with the respiratory illness and provide information on ways and means to avoid the illness, or, reduce exposure to it, based on stakeholder interests and priorities.
- Provide information to health care services stakeholders (local/national Ministries of Health) and their partner organizations so that they, in turn, can develop their respective pandemic action plans to prepare for the onset and inform their target audiences and networks.
- Communicate an action plan in preparation for the arrival of the pandemic virus in Country X; namely, antiviral and vaccine immunization schedules.
- Report frequently on results, status, and updates of the pandemic.
Avoid speculation and stick to the facts; the known versus the unknown. Epidemiological research and evidence is the yardstick. Don’t second-guess anything, especially in public.
Networking
You will need to grow a network of stakeholders and target groups. Think in terms of national public health authorities and their regional counterparts; all government departments at the municipal, regional and national levels; this is the same for national physicians and surgeons associations, hospitals, and healthcare workers; emergency management and early responders; scientific and medical research; universities, colleges, and public school students and educators; public sector departments of national health and wellness; political representatives; travel agencies; community organizations; news media and mass advertising including newspaper chains, radio, television; public transportation advertising, theatres and sports arena billboards or scoreboards; private sector pharmacies/chemists and pharmaceutical companies (think vaccine); even celebrities as volunteer spokespersons.
Some other pointers
Here are some other important points to consider in your plan:
- Conduct market research on stakeholders to identify perceptions and attitudes. This is needed to pre-test, shape and fine-tune communication during all steps of the communication development process.
- Schedule a timely, controlled release of information to mitigate and manage issues so as not to alarm the public, maintain public confidence, and facilitate the decision-making process.
- Avoid speculation and stick to the facts; the known versus the unknown. Epidemiological research and evidence is the yardstick. Don’t second-guess anything, especially in public.
- Influence behavioral change in the general public to reduce the risks and other preventive measures; developing perceptions of relevance.
- Adapt communication products for regional needs while maintaining the integrity of content.
- Ensure consistency in communicating key messages.
- Capitalize on cost economies and synergies in the production and distribution of communication material, information-sharing, and best practice.
- Contain the information/key messages until all the facts based on epidemiology reports are verified so as not to alarm the public.
- Establish a central organization-led multidisciplinary communication committee/team responsible for risk communication development and operations.
- Design and produce templates for all communication products, adaptable for local and regional health authorities, distributed through their respective communication practitioners network.
- Maintain contact with the central government office/department responsible for national healthcare.
- Test messages on stakeholder target audiences in advance of dissemination.
- Conduct communication research and stakeholder consultations to ensure the intent and content of public messages is understood; reformulate, as required.
- Identify and prepare media spokespersons for media interviews, media events, issuing statements and related public communication activities.
- Provide regular/daily briefings to the Chief Public Health Officer (who will in then inform the Department of Health).
- Use news media for widespread and rapid dissemination of ongoing news, issues, and public information.
- Set up a communication feedback system for public inquiries.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of communication activities based on outcomes, conduct a post-mortem.
- Contribute to the risk communication knowledge base by reporting on best practices and lessons learned; share with communities of practice/interest.
The full pdf version of Niagara Region Public Health Department's influenza pandemic plan is available to download.
Have your say
Can you share any more guidance or advice for communicating a pandemic such as Swine Flu? Share with fellow communicators the things that have gone right, and more importantly anything that went wrong.
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