Evidence-Based Public Health Unit, Centre for International Health Protection, Robert Koch Institute, Nordufer 20, 13353, Berlin, Germany.
African Center of Excellence for the Prevention and Control of Communicable Diseases & Centre de Formation et de Recherche en Santé Rurale de Maferinyah, PoBox 1017, Dixinn, Conakry, Guinea.
Global Health. 2022 Jun 27;18(1):66. doi: 10.1186/s12992-022-00857-x.
During outbreaks, uncertainties experienced by affected communities can influence their compliance to government guidance on public health. Communicators and authorities are, hence, encouraged to acknowledge and address such uncertainties. However, in the midst of public health crises, it can become difficult to define and identify uncertainties that are most relevant to address. We analyzed data on COVID-19-related uncertainties from four socio-economic contexts to explore how uncertainties can influence people's perception of, and response to Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) strategies.
This qualitative study, which adopts an interpretative approach, is based on data from a documentary review, key informant interviews (KII), and focus group discussions (FGD) with members of the general public and people with barriers to information from Germany, Guinea, Nigeria, and Singapore. Transcripts from the KII and FGD were coded and analyzed thematically. We interviewed a total of 155 KIs and conducted 73 FGD. Our analysis uncovered a divergence between uncertainties deemed relevant by stakeholders involved in policy making and uncertainties that people reportedly had to navigate in their everyday lives and which they considered relevant during the pandemic. We identified four types of uncertainties that seemed to have influenced people's assessment of the disease risk and their trust in the pandemic control strategies including RCCE efforts: epidemiological uncertainties (related to the nature and severity of the virus), information uncertainties (related to access to reliable information), social uncertainties (related to social behavior in times of heightened risk), and economic uncertainties (related to financial insecurities).
We suggest that in future outbreaks, communicators and policy makers could improve the way in which affected communities assess their risk, and increase the trust of these communities in response efforts by addressing non-epidemiological uncertainties in RCCE strategies.
在疫情爆发期间，受影响社区所经历的不确定性可能会影响他们对政府公共卫生指导的遵守情况。因此，鼓励传播者和当局承认和解决这些不确定性。然而，在公共卫生危机中，要定义和确定最需要解决的不确定性可能会变得困难。我们分析了来自四个社会经济背景的与 COVID-19 相关的不确定性数据，以探讨不确定性如何影响人们对风险沟通和社区参与 (RCCE) 策略的看法和反应。
这项采用解释性方法的定性研究基于来自德国、几内亚、尼日利亚和新加坡的文献综述、关键知情人访谈 (KII) 和焦点小组讨论 (FGD) 的数据，参与者包括普通公众和有信息障碍的人。KII 和 FGD 的文字记录进行了编码和主题分析。我们共采访了 155 名 KI，并进行了 73 次 FGD。我们的分析揭示了政策制定相关利益相关者认为相关的不确定性与人们在日常生活中不得不应对的不确定性之间存在分歧，而这些不确定性在疫情期间被认为是相关的。我们确定了四种似乎影响了人们对疾病风险的评估及其对大流行控制策略（包括 RCCE 努力）的信任的不确定性类型：流行病学不确定性（与病毒的性质和严重程度有关）、信息不确定性（与获取可靠信息有关）、社会不确定性（与高风险时期的社会行为有关）和经济不确定性（与金融不安全有关）。
我们建议，在未来的疫情爆发中，传播者和政策制定者可以通过在 RCCE 策略中解决非流行病学不确定性，改善受影响社区评估其风险的方式，并提高这些社区对响应措施的信任。
