Communications
Critical
Issues and Activities
Effectively
and Consistently Addressing Communication Challenges
Implementing
and broadening your pre-event smallpox vaccination recommendations
is likely to be interpreted by some (perhaps many) as an indication
of increased threat, or a likelihood of a smallpox outbreak or
attack. It may become difficult to communicate and educate people
about pre-event immunization priorities. Public and provider education
must avoid increasing perceived disease threat and fostering concerns
about the safety of currently recommended vaccines. Your messages
and materials must effectively address the benefit-risk concerns
of potential vaccinees. When forming your communications in the
pre-event period, you should minimize communication problems, as
much as possible, by developing needed materials and strategies
now.
Instill and
maintain public confidence in local public health systems – and
their ability to respond to and manage a smallpox outbreak – by
providing accurate, rapid and sufficient information. Rapidly provide
the public, health care providers, policy makers, and the media
access to accurate, consistent, and comprehensive information.
Involve your communications people now in any discussions and decisions
that will require or involve effective communications. Remember,
if communications is expected to be critical to success, communications
people must be involved early on.
Pre-event
Communications Needs at Local Level
Each local public
health agency should have a local plan that:
- Identifies
key messages, partners, and message delivery plans.
- Prepares
local official and health authorities for the local media interest
likely to be generated by smallpox.
- Prepare local
officials to effectively handle vaccine adverse reactions and
vaccine adverse events.
The local agency
also should have portfolios of communication and educational materials,
resources and spokespeople who can speak the same messages, but
geared towards the audience of the local community. And the local
agency should work out ahead of time how this information will
be disseminated, as well as how new messages can be cleared at
the local level and coordinated with the national level.
Current planning
efforts need to identify and address the social equity and liability
issues associated with ring vaccination or other highly focused
immunization strategies.
Assuming adequate
vaccine supplies in the event of an outbreak, consider complementing
focused vaccination with other strategies – for example,
mass or permissive vaccination. It would be very helpful to have
plans in place for “mass” immunization, including education
and communication strategies and materials.
If significant
changes are made to the current pre-attack vaccination recommendations
then:
- Be prepared
to provide information that effectively addresses the benefit-and-risk
concerns of potential vaccinees, such as tangible evidence of
increased threat.
- Be prepared
to undertake significant physician and public education efforts,
such as efforts that enable physicians to effectively discuss
vaccine benefits and risks with patients.
CDC Efforts
CDC Efforts
to Date Include:
- Formative
research with clinicians and members of the public to identify
smallpox related knowledge, beliefs and concerns.
- Identify “likely
to be asked” questions and then preparing answers and “Q&A” (Question
and Answer) documents.
- Develop and
testing tools that expand and prepare state and local communications
capacity and skills. This includes things such as live training
courses satellite courses, and interactive CD-ROMS.
- Developing
a “portfolio” of messages and materials for health
care providers, prospective vaccinees, and partners.
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