Ratzan and colleagues identified three general areas of capacity building for health communication during the pandemic: the need for communicators to be proactive and to take preventive actions at times; the importance of planning ahead while also acknowledging the unpredictability of the situation; and the call to focus on people. The checklist for health communicators is made up of five objectives: set shared goals, establish coordinated response, devise a communication strategy, implement the communication plan, and be ready to adapt.

When people see food that is symmetrical, they tend to believe it is more natural – and when they think a food is more natural, they perceive it to be healthier.

To become a better catalyst for change, Berger suggests to: Find the gaps. Rather than push or persuade someone, highlight a gap between their attitudes and their actions, and then get them to persuade themselves. For example: If someone is reluctant to wear a mask at work, ask them if they would wear one if their child or elderly parent were in the office. Ask why that same care or concern isn't present with their colleagues? Provide a “menu” of choices. Rather than unilaterally force a single solution on others, give people the freedom and autonomy to choose from a few options. This is one way to reduce people’s gut resistance, and again, help them persuade themselves. Cut through perceived risks. If people feel like a new idea is controversial or risky, explain your personal experience as to why you think it is more relatable and less extreme than they think.

Accurate classification of smoking status has long been regarded as an essential prerequisite for advancing tobacco-related epidemiologic, treatment, and policy research. However, the descriptors we commonly use to classify people who smoke may inadvertently perpetuate harmful, stigmatizing beliefs and negative stereotypes. In recognizing the power of words to either perpetuate or reduce stigma, Dr. Nora Volkow—Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse—recently highlighted the role of stigma in addiction,1 and the movement encouraging the use of person-first language and eliminating the use of slang and idioms when describing addiction and the people whom it affects.2,3 In this commentary, we make an appeal for researchers and clinicians to use personfirst language (e.g., “people who smoke”) rather than commonly used labels (e.g., “smokers”) in written (e.g., in scholarly reports) and verbal communication (e.g., clinical case presentations ) to promote greater respect and convey dignity for people who smoke. We assert that the use of precise and bias-free language to describe people who smoke has the potential to reduce smoking-related stigma and may enhance the precision of scientific communication.

Language data There is little information available on the languages crisis-affected people speak and understand. Humanitarians often develop communication strategies without reliable data on literacy, languages spoken, or preferred means of communication. The result too often is that crisis-affected people struggle to communicate with humanitarian organizations in a language they understand. Women, children, older people, and people with disabilities are often at the greatest disadvantage because they are less likely to understand international languages and lingua francas. TWB’s Language Data Initiative addresses those issues and provides important resources for humanitarians. It supports humanitarian organizations to develop language-informed programs and communication strategies. Click on a country on the map below to see language data, resources, and maps that we have available for that country. This map will update as new data is published in the future.

Forward-thinking public health professionals are reaching across sectors to build healthier communities. Recognizing that effective collaboration advances everyone’s mission, Public Health Reaching Across Sectors (PHRASES) supports an “all-hands-on-deck” approach with tools to build communication skills and strategies designed for success.

The Patient Activation Measure is a valid, highly reliable, unidimensional, probabilistic Guttman‐like scale that reflects a developmental model of activation. Activation appears to involve four stages: (1) believing the patient role is important, (2) having the confidence and knowledge necessary to take action, (3) actually taking action to maintain and improve one's health, and (4) staying the course even under stress. The measure has good psychometric properties indicating that it can be used at the individual patient level to tailor intervention and assess changes. (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1475-6773.2004.00269.x)

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How to create Twitter Posters

Almost everything you need to know about writing, reading, submitting, and understanding satire and humor.

all or nothing messaging may be harmful

Our new campaign – called Spring of Hope – shares one powerful and uplifting illustration per day, every day, until the end of May –– https://fineacts.co/hope. All works, commissioned specifically for the campaign, are published under a Creative Commons License and are free to print, share and adapt non-commercially – for anyone who needs a dose of hope in these trying times.

In Wales road signs are written in both English and Welsh. However the Welsh text actually reads “I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated”

handwashing sign

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designing for emotional states

applying behavioral science to health promotion

We tested how reframing the name of the vegetarian food category shapes food choices. • Environmental, social, and neutral (vs. vegetarian) frames boosted vegetarian choice. • No consistent differences emerged among the three non-vegetarian frames. • We investigated the underlying psychological mechanisms behind the main effects.

This meta-analysis began with a review of relevant literature on the perseverance of attitudes and beliefs and then assessed the impact of moderators on the misinformation, debunking, and misinformation-persistence effects. Compared with results from single experiments, meta-analysis is a useful catalogue of experimental paradigms, dependent variables, moderators, and other methods factors used in studies in related domains. In light of our findings, we offer three recommendations: (a) reduce arguments that support misinformation, (b) engage audiences in scrutiny and counterarguing of misinformation, and (c) introduce new information as part of the debunking message.

To fully explain how viral content – and viruses – spread, we need to move away from the idea that outbreaks involve simple clockwork infections, passing along a chain from person to person to person until large numbers have been exposed. During the 2015 outbreak of the Mers coronavirus in South Korea, 82 out of 186 infections came from a single “superspreading event” in a hospital where an infected person was being treated. It’s not yet clear how common such superspreading is in the current outbreak, but we do know that these kinds of events are how information goes viral online; most outbreaks on Twitter are dominated by a handful of individuals or media outlets, which are responsible for a large proportion of transmission. If you heard about snake flu, you might have told a couple of friends; meanwhile, newspaper headlines were telling millions. When tackling disease outbreaks, health agencies often work to identify potential superspreading events, isolating infected individuals to prevent further transmission. However, this isn’t the only way to stop an outbreak. As well as tracking down people who are infectious, it’s possible to target broader social interactions that might amplify transmission. For example, many cities in China have recently closed schools, which can be hotspots for respiratory infections.

I’ve been working on a model to help explain the stages of peer health connection and I’d love to get feedback on it.