scholarly journals Leveraging community engaged research partnerships for crisis and emergency risk communication to vulnerable populations in the COVID-19 pandemic

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark L. Wieland ◽  
Gladys B. Asiedu ◽  
Kiley Lantz ◽  
Adeline Abbenyi ◽  
Jane W. Njeru ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Risk Communication ◽  
Vulnerable Populations ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Research Partnerships ◽  
Socioeconomic Impacts ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Communication Framework ◽  
Community Engaged Research ◽  
Bidirectional Communication

Abstract Community engagement is important for reaching vulnerable populations in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. A risk communication framework was implemented by a community-engaged research (CEnR) partnership in Southeast Minnesota to address COVID-19 prevention, testing, and socioeconomic impacts. Bidirectional communication between Communication Leaders and community members within their social networks was used by the partnership to refine messages, leverage resources, and advise policy makers. Over 14 days, messages were delivered by 24 Communication Leaders in 6 languages across 9 electronic platforms to 9882 individuals within their networks. CEnR partnerships may effectively implement crisis and emergency risk communication to vulnerable populations in a pandemic.

scholarly journals Community-Engaged Bidirectional Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication With Immigrant and Refugee Populations During the COVID-19 Pandemic

2022 ◽  
pp. 003335492110655
Author(s):  
Mark L. Wieland ◽  
Gladys B. Asiedu ◽  
Jane W. Njeru ◽  
Jennifer A. Weis ◽  
Kiley Lantz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Communication ◽  
Work Group ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Socioeconomic Impacts ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Community Engaged Research ◽  
Mixed Methods Evaluation ◽  
Bidirectional Communication ◽  
Semistructured Interviews ◽  
Immigrant And Refugee

Objectives: This study was conducted to assess an intervention that was created by a community–academic partnership to address COVID-19 health inequities. We evaluated a community-engaged bidirectional pandemic crisis and emergency risk communication (CERC) framework with immigrant and refugee populations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A 17-year community-engaged research partnership adopted a CERC framework in March 2020 to address COVID-19 prevention, testing, and socioeconomic impacts with immigrant and refugee groups in southeast Minnesota. The partnership used bidirectional communication between communication leaders and their social networks to refine messages, leverage resources, and advise policy makers. We conducted a mixed-methods evaluation for intervention acceptability, feasibility, reach, adaptation, and sustainability through multisource data, including email communications, work group notes, semistructured interviews, and focus groups. Results: The intervention reached at least 39 000 people in 9 months. It was implemented as intended and perceived efficacy was high. Frequent communication between community and academic partners allowed the team to respond rapidly to concerns and facilitated connection of community members to resources. Framework implementation also led to systems and policy changes to meet the needs of immigrant and refugee populations. Conclusions: Community-engaged CERC is feasible and sustainable and can reduce COVID-19 disparities through shared creation and dissemination of public health messages, enhanced connection to existing resources, and incorporation of community perspectives in regional pandemic mitigation policies.

scholarly journals HANDLING DISTRUST ON RISK COMMUNICATION IN NIGERIA: A STRATEGY TO STRENGTHENING THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK RESPONSE

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Olayinka Stephen Ilesanmi ◽  
Priscilla Onaopemipo Akosile ◽  
Aanuoluwapo Adeyimika Afolabi ◽  
Victor Okoliko Ukwenya
Keyword(s):  
Risk Communication ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Outbreak Response ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Chi Square Test ◽  
Level Of Significance ◽  
High Level

Abstract Background This study aimed to assess the level of trust in the COVID-19 risk communication efforts in Nigeria. Methods We conducted a descriptive cross-sectional study among community members aged 15 years and above in Ondo state in October, 2020. Data were collected using an interviewer-administered questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 22. Descriptive statistics were summarized using frequencies. Trust was ranked from “1” implying “Low level of trust” to “7” denoting “High level of trust”. We conducted bivariate Chi-square test on respondents’ level of trust in the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and socio-demographic characteristics. The level of significance was set at p<0.05. Results Among the 691 respondents, 244 (35.3%) were aged 21 to 29 years, and 304 (51.4%) used the NCDC to obtain COVID-19 knowledge. Overall, 205 (41.8%) had high level of trust in the NCDC. Furthermore, 51 (51.5%) individuals aged 30-39 years had high level of trust in the NCDC (ᵡ2=17.455, p= 0.001). Also, 114 (48.5%) persons who lived with children below 18 years had high level of trust in the NCDC (ᵡ2= 8.266, p= 0.004). Conclusion Policy makers should prioritize the involvement of young and educated persons in COVID-19 risk communication strategies.

scholarly journals 3573 Critical Barriers to Effective Community-Academic Research Partnerships and Potential Solutions

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (s1) ◽  
pp. 86-87
Author(s):  
Susan J Woolford ◽  
Ayse G. Buyuktur ◽  
Patricia Piechowski ◽  
Aalap Doshi ◽  
Erica E. Marsh
Keyword(s):  
Community Engagement ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
The State ◽  
Academic Institutions ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Research Partnerships ◽  
Partnership Development ◽  
Community Engaged Research ◽  
Academic Partnerships ◽  
Effective Community

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: Background: The importance of engaging community in research and fostering community-academic research partnerships is increasingly acknowledged by Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) institutes. However, forming and maintaining such collaborations is often hampered by numerous challenges. It is critical to investigate the barriers to effective community-academic partnerships and to develop novel approaches to overcome these barriers. Objective: To explore community and academic perspectives of the challenges faced by community-academic research partnerships and potential solutions to these identified challenges. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Methods: In an effort to explore creative approaches to address these issues, the Community Engagement Program at the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research (MICHR), the CTSA site that serves Michigan, hosted a retreat to elicit the input of community members and academics from across the state. There was a mix of participants ranging from those with established community-academic partnerships to others who were new to community-engaged research and in early stages of forming partnerships. At the retreat, attendees were randomly divided into groups and asked to answer the specific question, “What are your barriers to partnering in research?” After each group identified a set of barriers and reported their findings to the entire room, attendees were asked to work again in their small groups to discuss potential solutions to these barriers. Ideas for solutions were also shared with the entire room. As part of the process of brainstorming about these questions, attendees were asked to document their ideas --- for both barriers and solutions --- on post-it notes which were then grouped by category. Artifacts from the retreat were saved digitally and transcripts made from these records. The findings were then analyzed to identify common themes. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Results: Eighty-six participants attended the retreat from across the state of Michigan. Forty-three represented community organizations that focus on addressing a wide array of social determinants of health issues. The remaining forty-three participants represented various academic institutions. The most frequently mentioned challenges to community-academic partnerships were related to communication and relationship building. To overcome barriers in these areas, participants noted that it is critical to collaboratively and explicitly identify shared goals, values and norms in the early stages of partnership development. This was closely linked to the need for additional funding to help foster and strengthen relationships by allowing partners to spend time together to both work and socialize informally, preferably in face-to-face settings. These were deemed crucial for building trust and common ground. In addition, more equitable funding and role distribution --- including shared leadership and governance of research projects between community and academia--- that recognizes and supports the true costs of involvement in research for community members was viewed as important. Other frequently noted issues on the part of community members were the need for greater respect for community partners and for more training opportunities to build capacity within communities to participate in research. Participants from academic institutions emphasized that the current requirements and timeline for promotion in academia make it harder for them to participate in community-engaged research, especially as early career researchers. They maintained that wider recognition of the value of community-engaged research is necessary and that this requires the support of home departments. Finally, participants underscored the importance of building infrastructure to better connect potential partners from the community and academia by making it easier to identify common interests and reciprocal strengths. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: Conclusion: The problems faced by community-academic partnerships may be alleviated by working with community and academic members to identify potential solutions. Further work is needed to systematically examine barriers and the efficacy of solutions to enhance community-academic partnerships. Acknowledgements: We thank all attendees of the MICHR Community Engagement retreat for their participation in this activity that explored barriers to effective community-academic partnerships. Their honest and frank feedback was essential to broaching sensitive topics related to partnership development, and to identify realistic and practical solutions. We also thank all members of the planning committee and our colleagues in the Community Engagement Program for their work on bringing together community and academic members for this retreat. This project was supported by grant number UL1TR002240 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS).

Stigma and Health/Risk Communication

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel A. Smith ◽  
Xun Zhu ◽  
Madisen Quesnell
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Health Promotion ◽  
Risk Communication ◽  
Interpersonal Communication ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Behavioral Changes ◽  
Community Networks ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Health And Wellbeing

Stigmas are profoundly negative stereotypes of a social group and its members that have diffused and normalized throughout a community. Being marked as a member of a stigmatized group does more than designate someone as different: stigmas denote people as discredited, devalued, and disgraced. Stigmas shape health and risk communication and are considered the leading—but least understood—barrier to health promotion. Communication and stigmas are dynamically connected. Communication is critical to a stigma’s existence, spread, expression, coping, and elimination. Using mediated and interpersonal communication, community members are socialized to recognize and react to stigmatized people. People use communication to enact the devaluation and ostracism of stigmatized people, and stigmatized people use communication to cope with stigmatization. Stigmas also shape communication: stigmas compel non-marked persons to engage in stigmatization and ostracism of marked persons, reduce marked people’s disclosure and encourage secrecy, and shape the characteristics of personal and community networks. Last, campaigns have used communication to attempt to eliminate existing stigmas. The accumulating research, conducted from diverse assumptions about human behavior (cultural determinism, evolutionary, socio-functional), shows how easily and effectively stigmas may be socialized; how challenging they are to manage; how many facets of health and wellbeing are devastated by their existence; and how difficult it is to attenuate them. While much has been uncovered about stigma, health, and risk, many questions remain. Among these include: How can one design messages that effectively alert the general public about imminent health threats and that successfully promote desirable behavioral changes without evoking stigma processes? How do different reactions to stigmatization influence targets and their social networks? What factors increase resistance or vulnerability to messages containing stigma-inducing content? How can one create an effective, reliable means to eliminate existing stigmas?

scholarly journals Rethinking success, integrity, and culture in research (part 1) — a multi-actor qualitative study on success in science

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Noémie Aubert Bonn ◽  
Wim Pinxten
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Research Integrity ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Research Quality ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Past ◽  
Research Students

Abstract Background Success shapes the lives and careers of scientists. But success in science is difficult to define, let alone to translate in indicators that can be used for assessment. In the past few years, several groups expressed their dissatisfaction with the indicators currently used for assessing researchers. But given the lack of agreement on what should constitute success in science, most propositions remain unanswered. This paper aims to complement our understanding of success in science and to document areas of tension and conflict in research assessments. Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews and focus groups with policy makers, funders, institution leaders, editors or publishers, research integrity office members, research integrity community members, laboratory technicians, researchers, research students, and former-researchers who changed career to inquire on the topics of success, integrity, and responsibilities in science. We used the Flemish biomedical landscape as a baseline to be able to grasp the views of interacting and complementary actors in a system setting. Results Given the breadth of our results, we divided our findings in a two-paper series, with the current paper focusing on what defines and determines success in science. Respondents depicted success as a multi-factorial, context-dependent, and mutable construct. Success appeared to be an interaction between characteristics from the researcher (Who), research outputs (What), processes (How), and luck. Interviewees noted that current research assessments overvalued outputs but largely ignored the processes deemed essential for research quality and integrity. Interviewees suggested that science needs a diversity of indicators that are transparent, robust, and valid, and that also allow a balanced and diverse view of success; that assessment of scientists should not blindly depend on metrics but also value human input; and that quality should be valued over quantity. Conclusions The objective of research assessments may be to encourage good researchers, to benefit society, or simply to advance science. Yet we show that current assessments fall short on each of these objectives. Open and transparent inter-actor dialogue is needed to understand what research assessments aim for and how they can best achieve their objective. Study Registration osf.io/33v3m.

Volcanic risk communication challenges in the global south: the case of Goma, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blaise Mafuko Nyandwi ◽  
Matthieu Kervyn ◽  
François Muhashy Habiyaremye ◽  
François Kervyn ◽  
Caroline Michellier
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Risk Management ◽  
Risk Communication ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Volcanic Risk ◽  
Communication Challenges ◽  
The City ◽  
Risk Preparedness

&lt;p&gt;The city of Goma is located in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. With around one million inhabitants, it is built on lava flows, 15 km south of the active Nyiragongo volcano. Historically, the town was affected twice by eruptions, in 1977 and 2002 and severe destructions were reported. At that time, no volcanic risk preparedness and management tools had been implemented, and communication during and after the eruption was not consistent enough to avoid panic and human casualties. Without an appropriate and accurate risk communication, people may adopt a behavior which can put them at risk, by increasing their vulnerability. Nineteen years after the last disaster, risk management still have to develop an effective risk preparedness strategy and integrate risk awareness raising tools. The aim of this ongoing doctoral research is the assessment of risk culture, building upon a risk perception assessment and identification of risk reduction measures to be enhanced.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A survey of 2224 adults among the general population of Goma was conducted in eight representative neighborhoods in order to assess the risk perception, the experience of the risk communication as well as the risk preparedness of inhabitants. We here present a first analysis of the results regarding the risk communication challenges. Goma is a dynamic town with a young population (80% are under 45 years old), living in relatively poor and large family (51% of households have 4-7 members and 31% 8-11 members; 57% of household have an income between 0-250$), with rather low education (47% is secondary level and 34% graduated). Language is one of the volcanic risk communication challenges in Goma: apart from French as the official language, Swahili as local, and English imposed by the large humanitarian sector, there are many dialects. Moreover, most communication tools are informal (social networks, friends and relatives&amp;#8230;) and inhabitants mostly look for information on religion (22%), health (15%) and politics (12%), but not so much about risk reduction. Local radio (24%), television (14,5%) and social networks (13%) are the most preferred information channels. The city of Goma is also very dynamic: with a high migration rate, the population is growing and renewing itself regularly, to the point that risk communication must take into account the newcomers in order to be efficient. Additionally, our survey shows that experience of disasters and trust in decision-makers also provide a basis for effective risk communication.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;By presenting, as examples, the communication chain during the 2002 Nyiragongo eruption, as well as a more recent example of miscommunication due to the publication, in the general public press, of a scientific article with significant uncertainties in eruption forecast modelling (leading to misinterpretation by non-expert readers), we will demonstrate that the cascading reactions may have consequences putting risk decision-makers and scientists in a difficult position, by provoking a feeling of mistrust and doubt among the population. Based on the Goma case study, we will show that risk communication in the global south is a major risk management challenge with complex issues.&lt;/p&gt;

scholarly journals Global stakeholder perspectives of home birth: a systematic scoping review

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ginny Brunton ◽  
Samira Wahab ◽  
Hassan Sheikh ◽  
Beth Murray Davis
Keyword(s):  
Maternal Mortality ◽  
Vulnerable Populations ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Research Evidence ◽  
Home Birth ◽  
Rural And Remote ◽  
Primary Research ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
High Resource ◽  
Stakeholder Perspectives

AbstractHome birth is experienced by people very differently worldwide. These experiences likely differ by the type of stakeholder involved (women, their support persons, birth attendants, policy-makers), the experience itself (low-risk birth, transfer to hospital, previous deliveries), and by the health system within which home birth occurs (e.g., high-resource versus low- and middle-resource countries). Research evidence of stakeholders’ perspectives of home birth could usefully inform personal and policy decisions about choosing and providing home birth, but the current literature is fragmented and its breadth is not fully understood.We conducted a systematic scoping review to understand how the research literature on stakeholders’ perspectives of home birth is characterized in terms of populations, settings and identified issues, and what potential gaps exist in the research evidence. A range of electronic, web-based and key informant sources of evidence were searched. Located references were assessed, data extracted, and descriptively analyzed using robust methods.Our analysis included 460 full reports. Findings from 210 reports of studies in high-resource countries suggested that research with fathers and same-sex partners, midwives, and vulnerable populations and perspectives of freebirth and transfer to hospital could be synthesized. Gaps in primary research exist with respect to family members, policy makers, and those living in rural and remote locations. A further 250 reports of studies in low- and middle-resource countries suggested evidence for syntheses related to fathers and other family members, policy makers, and other health care providers and examination of issues related to emergency transfer to hospital, rural and remote home birth, and those who birth out of hospital, often at home, despite receiving antenatal care intended to increase healthcare-seeking behavior. Gaps in primary research suggest an examination is needed of perspectives in countries with higher maternal mortality and among first-time mothers and young mothers.Our scoping review identified a considerable body of research evidence on stakeholder perspectives of home birth. These could inform the complex factors influencing personal decisions and health system planning around home birth in both high- and low- and middle-resource countries. Future primary research is warranted on specific stakeholders worldwide and with vulnerable populations in areas of high maternal mortality.

Effective Communication During an Influenza Pandemic: The Value of Using a Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication Framework

2008 ◽  
Vol 9 (4_suppl) ◽  
pp. 13S-17S ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Reynolds ◽  
Sandra Crouse Quinn
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Risk Communication ◽  
Scientific Reasoning ◽  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Persuasive Communication ◽  
Communication Framework ◽  
Conflicting Information ◽  
Scientific Experts ◽  
Positive Action

During a crisis, an open and empathetic style of communication that engenders the public's 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.

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