Yesterday I was listening to author Reid Wilson, Epidemic: Ebola and the Global Scramble to Prevent the Next Killer Outbreak talk about epidemics on NPR yesterday. He was reflecting on what occurred during the Ebola outbreak and how it relates to today's Covid19 pandemic.
He was using a powerful example of how people in West Africa changed their burial habits. Liberians began cremated, changing a thousands year old cultural burial tradition. They did this in order to protect themselves and their community. Reid goes on to state that he is seeing the same thing around the globe today during the Covid crisis. He sums it all up by saying:
"People are intelligent. And if you give them the proper information on how to protect themselves they will go as far as to change the practices that their culture has used for of a thousand years in order to protect themselves in the short run from a virus. That tells me we have to put a premium on disseminating intelligent, timely and correct information. Giving the people the tools to protect themselves would save a lot of lives." (Reid Wilson 4/9/20 NPR)
Timely for those of us who are thinking about how to create intelligent, truthful message that gets beyond the ubiquitous basic hygiene message we see during each outbreak (H1N1, SARS).
Here is the third in a series of Soundbites Seminars on Health Literacy and Covid19. I'm grateful to the innovative thinkers in public health communication (from as far away a New Zealand and Greece) who took part in this series. This session explored the role and limits of simple and simplified information in a complex world.
Click HERE to view video
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