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Public Health and Risk Communication During COVID-19—Enhancing Psychological Needs to Promote Sustainable Behavior Change

Background: The current COVID-19 pandemic requires sustainable behavior change to mitigate the impact of the virus. A phenomenon which has arisen in parallel with this pandemic is an infodemic—an over-abundance of information, of which some is accurate and some is not, making it hard for people to f...

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Autores principales: Porat, Talya, Nyrup, Rune, Calvo, Rafael A., Paudyal, Priya, Ford, Elizabeth
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7652763/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33194973
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2020.573397
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author Porat, Talya
Nyrup, Rune
Calvo, Rafael A.
Paudyal, Priya
Ford, Elizabeth
author_facet Porat, Talya
Nyrup, Rune
Calvo, Rafael A.
Paudyal, Priya
Ford, Elizabeth
author_sort Porat, Talya
collection PubMed
description Background: The current COVID-19 pandemic requires sustainable behavior change to mitigate the impact of the virus. A phenomenon which has arisen in parallel with this pandemic is an infodemic—an over-abundance of information, of which some is accurate and some is not, making it hard for people to find trustworthy and reliable guidance to make informed decisions. This infodemic has also been found to create distress and increase risks for mental health disorders, such as depression and anxiety. Aim: To propose practical guidelines for public health and risk communication that will enhance current recommendations and will cut through the infodemic, supporting accessible, reliable, actionable, and inclusive communication. The guidelines aim to support basic human psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness to support well-being and sustainable behavior change. Method: We applied the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and concepts from psychology, philosophy and human computer interaction to better understand human behaviors and motivations and propose practical guidelines for public health communication focusing on well-being and sustainable behavior change. We then systematically searched the literature for research on health communication strategies during COVID-19 to discuss our proposed guidelines in light of the emerging literature. We illustrate the guidelines in a communication case study: wearing face-coverings. Findings: We propose five practical guidelines for public health and risk communication that will cut through the infodemic and support well-being and sustainable behavior change: (1) create an autonomy-supportive health care climate; (2) provide choice; (3) apply a bottom-up approach to communication; (4) create solidarity; (5) be transparent and acknowledge uncertainty. Conclusion: Health communication that starts by fostering well-being and basic human psychological needs has the potential to cut through the infodemic and promote effective and sustainable behavior change during such pandemics. Our guidelines provide a starting point for developing a concrete public health communication strategy.
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spelling pubmed-76527632020-11-13 Public Health and Risk Communication During COVID-19—Enhancing Psychological Needs to Promote Sustainable Behavior Change Porat, Talya Nyrup, Rune Calvo, Rafael A. Paudyal, Priya Ford, Elizabeth Front Public Health Public Health Background: The current COVID-19 pandemic requires sustainable behavior change to mitigate the impact of the virus. A phenomenon which has arisen in parallel with this pandemic is an infodemic—an over-abundance of information, of which some is accurate and some is not, making it hard for people to find trustworthy and reliable guidance to make informed decisions. This infodemic has also been found to create distress and increase risks for mental health disorders, such as depression and anxiety. Aim: To propose practical guidelines for public health and risk communication that will enhance current recommendations and will cut through the infodemic, supporting accessible, reliable, actionable, and inclusive communication. The guidelines aim to support basic human psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness to support well-being and sustainable behavior change. Method: We applied the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and concepts from psychology, philosophy and human computer interaction to better understand human behaviors and motivations and propose practical guidelines for public health communication focusing on well-being and sustainable behavior change. We then systematically searched the literature for research on health communication strategies during COVID-19 to discuss our proposed guidelines in light of the emerging literature. We illustrate the guidelines in a communication case study: wearing face-coverings. Findings: We propose five practical guidelines for public health and risk communication that will cut through the infodemic and support well-being and sustainable behavior change: (1) create an autonomy-supportive health care climate; (2) provide choice; (3) apply a bottom-up approach to communication; (4) create solidarity; (5) be transparent and acknowledge uncertainty. Conclusion: Health communication that starts by fostering well-being and basic human psychological needs has the potential to cut through the infodemic and promote effective and sustainable behavior change during such pandemics. Our guidelines provide a starting point for developing a concrete public health communication strategy. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-10-27 /pmc/articles/PMC7652763/ /pubmed/33194973 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2020.573397 Text en Copyright © 2020 Porat, Nyrup, Calvo, Paudyal and Ford. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Porat, Talya
Nyrup, Rune
Calvo, Rafael A.
Paudyal, Priya
Ford, Elizabeth
Public Health and Risk Communication During COVID-19—Enhancing Psychological Needs to Promote Sustainable Behavior Change
title Public Health and Risk Communication During COVID-19—Enhancing Psychological Needs to Promote Sustainable Behavior Change
title_full Public Health and Risk Communication During COVID-19—Enhancing Psychological Needs to Promote Sustainable Behavior Change
title_fullStr Public Health and Risk Communication During COVID-19—Enhancing Psychological Needs to Promote Sustainable Behavior Change
title_full_unstemmed Public Health and Risk Communication During COVID-19—Enhancing Psychological Needs to Promote Sustainable Behavior Change
title_short Public Health and Risk Communication During COVID-19—Enhancing Psychological Needs to Promote Sustainable Behavior Change
title_sort public health and risk communication during covid-19—enhancing psychological needs to promote sustainable behavior change
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7652763/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33194973
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2020.573397
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