FluTrackers Invited to Advise on Risk Communications in Public Health Emergencies to Asia-Europe Foundation

[sharon sanders]

I am pleased to announce that FluTrackers has been invited to advise on Risk Communications for Public Health Emergencies to the The Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) and the Research Council of Norway.


"The Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), in collaboration with the Research Council of Norway, is pleased to invite you to the workshop Risk Communications for Public Health Emergencies: What to Learn from Real-life Events.

The workshop will take place on on 2?3 October 2014 in Oslo, Norway and will be hosted by the Research Council of Norway. ASEF is an inter-governmental organisation which strengthens relations between Asia and Europe. The ASEF Public Health Network contributes to building Asian and European countries? capacity to prepare for and manage public health emergenices by facilitating co-operation between the health and non-health sectors.

The workshop will bring together professionals in the field of risk communication for public health emergenices. Participants will evaluate the challenges and capacity needs recognised by different stakeholders in communications for such events. In this process of drawing lessons, participants will identify core elements for the lessons to become useful and functional in future public health emergencies. The objectives will be achieved through presentations of case studies, working group discussions as well as a simulation exercise.

The co-organisers would be delighted if you could attend this workshop and share your expertise in epidemiology and managing web-based information sharing on infectious diseases."

Attending for FluTrackers is Gert van der Hoek. Thank you Gert!

We will be stressing our commitment to The International Declaration of Human Rights and the importance of this document in the application of public health practices.

We are always trying to stress to entities that candor and honesty in public health emergencies is essential. The public is the major "stakeholder" in any emergency and should be a partner in the process.

 

[JJackson]

Re: FluTrackers Invited to Advise on Risk Communications in Public Health Emergencies to Asia-Europe Foundation

Excellent, Gert will be valuable addition to this exercise. I look forward to the output from this meeting, and Gert's thoughts.

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: FluTrackers Invited to Advise on Risk Communications in Public Health Emergencies to Asia-Europe Foundation

Great news! :applause::applause::applause: Gert!

 

[Lizw]

Re: FluTrackers Invited to Advise on Risk Communications in Public Health Emergencies to Asia-Europe Foundation

Congratulations! Another confirmation of the good work of this group of people.

 

[Michael Coston]

Re: FluTrackers Invited to Advise on Risk Communications in Public Health Emergencies to Asia-Europe Foundation

That's terrific news, I'm sure Gert will do a wonderful job, and hope she has a great time doing it.


Congrats to everyone. :applause:

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: FluTrackers Invited to Advise on Risk Communications in Public Health Emergencies to Asia-Europe Foundation

Hi folks,

yes this could be fun in Oslo. Guess most participants will be government representatives. I'll try to convince them not to be afraid of people, not to be afraid of democratic principles, or human rights like freedom of speech and freedom of information. In case of a health crisis you need the people, the public to resolve the situation? If you want "the public" to trust the government, you have to trust "the public"?

In case of a health crisis all kinds of "non-health factors" may complicate things, open and honest communication could lower the impact of these "non-health factors".

FT was invited because here we have an "open acces database" running, the ASEF would like to know what is going on here. I'll try to represent FT in the true FT spirit.

I'll let you know how it was, thanks for the support. :tiphat:

 

[Ronan Kelly]

Re: FluTrackers Invited to Advise on Risk Communications in Public Health Emergencies to Asia-Europe Foundation

Fantastic! Congratulations Gert & all at FT!

 

[Thornton]

Re: FluTrackers Invited to Advise on Risk Communications in Public Health Emergencies to Asia-Europe Foundation

Congratulations ! :applause:
Thornton

 

[Shannon Bennett]

Re: FluTrackers Invited to Advise on Risk Communications in Public Health Emergencies to Asia-Europe Foundation

Nice work Gert! You will do a magnificant job.

 

[Shiloh]

Re: FluTrackers Invited to Advise on Risk Communications in Public Health Emergencies to Asia-Europe Foundation

How timely. Congrats to us all.

We are seeing the failure of meaningful risk communication in West Africa and with the politicization of an outbreak of a disease(s) in Venezuela. Trust is the foundation of everything. In an epidemic, the war on the disease is not going to be won from top down govt. initiatives but from the bottom up...by individuals who know their communities, are trusted and can organize and educate. They are the key to success.
How the Canadians handled the H5N1 case in Alberta is a fine example of how information was delivered to inform the public yet the rights of the patient were respected. Alas, too few examples of such these days given the variation in privacy laws.

 

[tetano]

Re: FluTrackers Invited to Advise on Risk Communications in Public Health Emergencies to Asia-Europe Foundation

If you want "the public" to trust the government, you have to trust "the public"?

This is a really important point
:applause::applause::applause:

 

[cozodapo]

Re: FluTrackers Invited to Advise on Risk Communications in Public Health Emergencies to Asia-Europe Foundation

Flutrackers provides a transparent, multidisciplinary, multicultural platform for information sharing and is exemplary.

It is not clear that there was or is a failure in risk communication in the Mano River Union (Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia) so much as a different prioritization of the risk within different contexts.

The concept of "meaningful risk communication" is contextual. The bald facts of a risk can be successfully shared and understood but expecting that the all parties should have the same attitude towards those facts is where we go wrong. People who live at daily risk from several endemic fever causing illnesses all of which can kill to one degree or another are going to have different attitude towards "yet another fever causing disease" and will prioritise actions accordingly. (This is not peculiar to Africans -- consider the attitudes of people in temperate regions towards flu/common cold/allergy complex of symptoms.)

Add to this politics, ethnic/linguistic differences, and easy internet access to a smorgasbord of theories, hypotheses and just plain mis-information that can be used to justify any course of action and you can see what are the challenges we face!

How timely. Congrats to us all.

We are seeing the failure of meaningful risk communication in West Africa and with the politicization of an outbreak of a disease(s) in Venezuela. Trust is the foundation of everything. In an epidemic, the war on the disease is not going to be won from top down govt. initiatives but from the bottom up...by individuals who know their communities, are trusted and can organize and educate. They are the key to success.
How the Canadians handled the H5N1 case in Alberta is a fine example of how information was delivered to inform the public yet the rights of the patient were respected. Alas, too few examples of such these days given the variation in privacy laws.

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: FluTrackers Invited to Advise on Risk Communications in Public Health Emergencies to Asia-Europe Foundation

Thanks for the comments , appreciate it!

@Cozodapo: "contextual", good point, I agree. Wish you all the best in these very difficult times in your country.

 

[Vibrant62]

Re: FluTrackers Invited to Advise on Risk Communications in Public Health Emergencies to Asia-Europe Foundation

Well done and good luck.

I think that they need to grasp that now is a 'teachable moment'. We will get ebola introductions, and these will be managed, but honest dissemination of the facts and education is needed now, not when an introduction arrives. The 'dont worry, be happy' messaging is not going to be helpful at this point unless preceded by education, that properly contextualises the risks. People ARE going to be fearful, but fear can be managed when people have enough appropriate information already to hand - completely agree cozodapo. Doing this only when the problem arrives is insufficient, as fear can cloud reason and judgement.

 

[Amish Country]

Re: FluTrackers Invited to Advise on Risk Communications in Public Health Emergencies to Asia-Europe Foundation

Wow! Just wow! Congrats Gert. I don't envy you the task ahead of you. It will be a challenge that is for sure. I hope you can get them to see the value of telling the truth and encouraging families, communities, business as well as healthcare institutions to prepare and be as self reliant as possible.

The information on this board is a powerful tool. This invitation is another validation of that fact.

 

[Emily]

Re: FluTrackers Invited to Advise on Risk Communications in Public Health Emergencies to Asia-Europe Foundation

Thank you, Gert, for participating in this important workshop! :applause: Communicating risk in an inspirational way without crushing hope and creating despair and panic seems a great challenge. I know you'll make a valuable contribution and look forward to hearing your thoughts about the workshop.

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: FluTrackers Invited to Advise on Risk Communications in Public Health Emergencies to Asia-Europe Foundation

This article says it all. It is from an European Union funded project called "Tell Me".

TELL ME is a 36 month Collaborative Project, which aims to provide evidence and to develop models for improved risk communication during infectious disease crises.

What Ebola taught us about risk communication

[Link to full article]

Wed, 09/03/2014

some quotes:

Extreme poverty, dysfunctional health systems and fear are the three main reasons behind this international health crisis.

Effective outbreak communication should be a dialogue between all these elements, with the public sphere very much at the centre. Most of all, .... experts highlighted the importance of "listening to the public", in order to acknowledge that public fears should not be disregarded as irrational. On the contrary, they should be taken into account when planning an outbreak communication strategy, in order to build trust with the authorities and avoid the generation of misinformation from the onset of the outbreak.

Acknowledging people’s concerns is thus crucial in order to establish a link between them and the institutions, a link that may become a channel to be used to fight both misinformation and the lack of proper information.

One way to build trust, ..., is for the organizations to establish a presence on the media – especially on the social media – long before the emergence of a crisis.

Health and government institutions of the affected African countries have not built a social media presence but this does not mean that it is too late for them to develop a two-way communication with the other stakeholders involved. This would mean not only the population, but also healthcare professionals.

The dynamics behind the spread of false rumours have been recently investigated, using the riots occurred in Birmingham in August 2011, and the relative diffusion of misinformation on Twitter, as a model. This study revealed that false information, especially one with a dramatic content, might spread easily if not immediately challenged. However, as more people on Twitter found out about it, they began to cross-verify and check with official sources.

A lesson to be used to better fight this disease right now but also to better prepare for another one, because risk communication cannot simply be a reaction to a crisis but should help to be ready to face it before it occurs.

 

[gsgs]

Re: FluTrackers Invited to Advise on Risk Communications in Public Health Emergencies to Asia-Europe Foundation

expert probability estimates is the key to risk assessment and
risk communication

best is to choose independent, unbiased experts who have no professional
interest in either prediction/estimate

the analysing expert who discusses and communicates pros and cons
and who has not a predefined fixed agenda


imo

 

[Roehl_JC]

Re: FluTrackers Invited to Advise on Risk Communications in Public Health Emergencies to Asia-Europe Foundation

I am pleased to announce that FluTrackers has been invited to advise on Risk Communications for Public Health Emergencies to the The Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) and the Research Council of Norway.


"The Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), in collaboration with the Research Council of Norway, is pleased to invite you to the workshop Risk Communications for Public Health Emergencies: What to Learn from Real-life Events.

...Attending for FluTrackers is Gert van der Hoek. Thank you Gert!

We will be stressing our commitment to The International Declaration of Human Rights and the importance of this document in the application of public health practices.

We are always trying to stress to entities that candor and honesty in public health emergencies is essential. The public is the major "stakeholder" in any emergency and should be a partner in the process.

Congratulations to Gert and to FluTrackers & Sharon and all FTers for this wonderful development. :applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::tiphat::tiphat: