Barbara Reynolds

Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication as an Integrative Model

This article describes a model of communication known as crisis and emergency risk communication (CERC). The model is outlined as a merger of many traditional notions of health and risk communication with work in crisis and disaster communication. The specific kinds of communication activities that should be called for at various stages of disaster or crisis development are outlined. Although crises are by definition uncertain, equivocal, and often chaotic situations, the CERC model is presented as a tool health communicators can use to help manage these complex events.

CERC as a Theoretical Framework for Research and Practice

Health communicators at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have developed an integrated model titled Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) as a tool to educate and equip public health professionals for the expanding communication responsibilities of public health in emergency situations. This essay focuses on CERC as a general theoretical framework for explaining how health communication functions within the contexts of risk and crisis. Specifically, the authors provide an overview of CERC and examine the relationship of risk communication to crisis communication, the role of communication in emergency response, and the theoretical underpinnings of CERC. The article offers an initial set of propositions based on the CERC framework and concludes with a discussion of future directions.

Effective communication during an influenza pandemic: the value of using a crisis and emergency risk communication framework.

During a crisis, an open and empathetic style of communication that engenders the publics trust is the most effective when officials are attempting to galvanize the population to take a positive action or refrain from a harmful act. Although trust is imperative in a crisis, public suspicions of scientific experts and government are increasing for a variety of reasons, including access to more sources of conflicting information, a reduction in the use of scientific reasoning in decision making, and political infighting. Trust and credibility—which are demonstrated through empathy and caring, competence and expertise, honesty and openness, and dedication and commitment—are essential elements of persuasive communication.

When the facts are just not enough: Credibly communicating about risk is riskier when emotions run high and time is short

When discussing risk with people, commonly subject matter experts believe that conveying the facts will be enough to allow people to assess a risk and respond rationally to that risk. Because of this expectation, experts often become exasperated by the seemingly illogical way people assess personal risk and choose to manage that risk. In crisis situations when the risk information is less defined and choices must be made within impossible time constraints, the thought processes may be even more susceptible to faulty heuristics. Understanding the perception of risk is essential to understanding why the public becomes more or less upset by events. This article explores the psychological underpinnings of risk assessment within emotionally laden events and the risk communication practices that may facilitate subject matter experts to provide the facts in a manner so they can be more certain those facts are being heard. Source credibility is foundational to risk communication practices. The public meeting is one example in which these best practices can be exercised. Risks are risky because risk perceptions differ and the psychosocial environment in which risk is discussed complicates making risk decisions. Experts who want to influence the actions of the public related to a threat or risk should understand that decisions often involve emotional as well as logical components. The media and other social entities will also influence the risk context. The Center for Disease Control and Preventions crisis and emergency-risk communication (CERC) principles are intended to increase credibility and recognize emotional components of an event. During a risk event, CERC works to calm emotions and increase trust which can help people apply the expertise being offered by response officials.

How the CDC is meeting the training demands of emergency risk communication.

Communication is a relatively new discipline in the field of public health. Historically, federal public health agencies have focused on epidemiological studies, disease prevention efforts (e.g., immunization campaigns), and the provision of accurate scientific information to health professionals. Translating this scientific information for public consumption was left to the press (Freimuth, Linnan, & Potter, 2000). With the advent of AIDS, other emergent diseases, and the as-yet-unrealized threat of bioterrorism, communicating clearly to the public was recognized as a necessary component of public health practice (Freimuth et al., 2000), but it was not oriented towards emergencies. In 1993, during William Roper’s tenure as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), CDC’s newly formed Office of Communication (OC) was charged with crafting and delivering messages and strategies, based on consumer research, to promote the health of individuals and communities. Building national capacity in health communication has become a major goal of OC, and training the public health workforce to communicate well is the paramount strategy for reaching that goal. Since 1998, CDCynergy—an interactive CD-ROM that helps users develop, plan, implement, and evaluate health communication programs—has been OC’s primary training tool (Parvanta & Freimuth, 2000). Using the systematic CDCynergy process can be lengthy, taking several months or more, but the anthrax attacks of 2001 made it apparent that most people in public health need training in rapid, effective communication during a crisis. Although the fields of risk and crisis communication are not new, communicating during a terrorist attack has presented some unique challenges. Risk communication includes strategies for framing the risks of various exposures; it is frequently used in connection with disease prevention campaigns, disease outbreaks and environmental hazards (Fearn-Banks, 2000). Crisis communication is the verbal, visual, and/or written interaction between an organization and its publics (often the news media) prior to,

Crisis and emergency risk messaging in mass media news stories: is the public getting the information they need to protect their health?

ABSTRACT The mass media provide an important channel for delivering crisis and emergency risk information to the public. We conducted a content analysis of 369 newspaper and television broadcast stories covering natural disaster and foodborne outbreak events and coded for seven best practices in crisis and emergency risk messaging. On average, slightly less than two (1.86) of the seven best practices were included in each story. The proportion of stories including individual best practices ranged from 4.6% for “expressing empathy” to 83.7% for “explaining what is known” about the event’s impact to human health. Each of the other five best practices appeared in less than 25% of stories. These results suggest much of the risk messaging the public receives via mass media does not follow best practices for effective crisis and emergency communication, potentially compromising public understanding and actions in response to events.

Some Threats to Laboratory Research Require an Unusual Antidote

www.absa.org Applied Biosafety Vol. 13, No. 3, 2008 No one would question that a laboratory of any kind, but especially a high-containment laboratory, needs biosafety protocols, stringent waste disposal plans, and personal protective equipment in place before the laboratory goes hot. However, another essential and often missing laboratory tool is the media and risk communication plan. When the subject of communication planning is broached, few argue its necessity yet most believe that risk and media communication will “take care of itself” when needed. Professionals who put themselves at some level of risk to advance knowledge about microorganisms may not realize that a real threat to their ability to pursue their work is, in fact, not an unfortunate exposure in the lab but a public drubbing for violating the community’s trust. Moreover, extensive efforts often are in place to assure against occurrence of the former event, but little is done to protect against the latter. Understanding the driving forces that create mistrust among community members and the concomitant outcry to stop vital research is worthwhile. The antidote is taking tangible, proven protective steps before, during, and after an event occurs to allow privateor public-funded laboratory research to continue. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”—Warren Buffett Reputation is like DNA. The organization’s identity is expressed by the accumulation of individual events that are strung together. Like DNA’s double helix, the good and the bad are inextricably connected, and activities that enhance or protect credibility should not be separated. An organization’s reputation depends on the continuous and dynamic spiraling of two functions: identity enhancement and risk mitigation or response. Enhancement involves every step in measuring, preserving, and growing credibility capital such as publicly recognizing laboratory successes, making research results easily understood by the community, and community engagement (i.e., bringing the lab’s important achievements to the community through guest presentations). Risk mitigation and response involve monitoring for and assessing possible credibility threats to forestall them, or detect and respond to them if they do occur. It’s about managing both threats and opportunities. Importantly, risk to an organization’s reputation may arise from new initiatives or from inaction. Even strong, positive reputations must be actively managed for the longterm, based on both performance criteria and effective communication. While communication alone can not protect an organization’s credibility, maintaining the public’s trust means fulfilling the stated and implied promises by combining one’s best science with strong ethics and values. Public trust is built, enhanced, or restored, in part, through effective communication, especially when perceptions of mistrust occur. Today, the definition of an organization is based much more on what others are saying about it in multiple electronic formats, including the Internet. Before the information age, the media served as a filter for information. Today, any individual has the power to define the organization in an electronic setting and that information can move across the world overnight. These new information outlets may have fewer checks and balances for accuracy and perspective. Traditional media have been increasingly overcome by new media, including bloggers, and in some cases new media are setting media agendas. Information no longer flows in a hierarchal fashion, but moves, instead, in elaborate and constantly changing horizontal networks. This changing environment requires new, deliberate communication choices, including grassroots outreach.