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Session Title: Evaluating Communications Strategies for Public Health Emergencies: Experiences of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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Panel Session 579 to be held in Room 102 in the Convention Center on Friday, Nov 7, 10:55 AM to 11:40 AM
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Sponsored by the Health Evaluation TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Keri Lubell,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
klubell@cdc.gov
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| Abstract:
During public health emergencies such as disease outbreaks, natural disasters, or bioterrorism attacks, decision-makers (individuals, families, communities, policy makers, clinicians) need timely, accurate, credible, and actionable health information to minimize morbidity and mortality. The Emergency Communication System (ECS) at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed from communication challenges and lessons learned during the anthrax attacks in 2001. ECS integrates emergency-related communication activity across CDC; ensures the execution of coherent risk communication strategies to reach the public, affected communities, and partners with health protection messages; translates CDC's science for diverse audiences; disseminates tailored, consistent messages through multiple channels to achieve maximum outreach; and serve as CDC's liaison to federal/state/local partners in coordination of emergency-related health messages nation-wide. This panel presents evaluation information on ECS communication efforts with, first, external partners and the public during emergencies generally, and second, internal agency staff working to prevent world-wide pandemic influenza.
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Evaluating Agency Communications During a Public Health Emergency
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| Keri Lubell,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
klubell@cdc.gov
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| Scott Hale,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
shale@cdc.gov
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| Wendy Holmes,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
wholmes@cdc.gov
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| Marsha Vanderford,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
mev7@cdc.gov
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Communicating effectively with the public during a large-scale health emergency or infectious disease outbreak is critical for ensuring safety and preventing death, injury or illness. But, to date, there have been few systematic efforts to evaluate the outcomes or impacts of emergency communications efforts (e.g., messages, dissemination strategies, or tactics). To address this need, in 2008, the Emergency Communications System (ECS) at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began developing a plan to evaluate how the agency communicates during the acute phases of a public health crisis. The process included creating a logic model, convening emergency communications experts to provide feedback and help construct an evaluation plan, evaluability assessment activities by ECS staff, and data collection and analysis by a collaborative team of internal and external evaluators. This presentation provides background on communication needs during emergencies and preliminary findings on the results of the evaluability assessment and evaluation.
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Evaluating Media Monitoring as an Internal Agency Communications Tool
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| Scott Hale,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
shale@cdc.gov
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| Reyna Jones,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
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| Miriam Cho,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
gyo4@cdc.gov
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| Cornelia Redding,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
gzx8@cdc.gov
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| Keri Lubell,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
klubell@cdc.gov
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ECS also conducts monitoring of domestic and international television, print, and internet media on a potentially devastating health issue: avian and pandemic influenza. Stories are systematically collected from media in the largest markets, coded into strategic categories, and tracked over time. The compiled information is emailed daily to over 150 CDC agency staff including epidemiologists, health communications experts, and decision-makers. To evaluate the utility of the report as an internal communications tool, we first collected data from a purposive sample of key informant CDC staff to establish their expectations and information needs. We then conducted a survey of staff receiving the report to assess how often they actively engaged the information and how they incorporated the contents into their work. This presentation provides data CDC's efforts to fill a significant gap in internal awareness of critical public concerns that affect the communications environment for pandemic influenza.
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