The reception of public health messages during the COVID-19 pandemic

Engaging the public: English local government organisations’ social media communications during the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…In terms of communication strategies, several researchers have reviewed existing scholarship on COVID-related official communication and/or historical public health communication to provide evidence of, and propose, effective communication strategies. The strategies that are most often described as effective in the research include: tailoring messages to the specific audience and fostering relatedness between the public and the source of the message (feeling cared for by others, trusted and understood) ( Malecki et al., 2021 ; Porat et al., 2020 ; Power and Crosthwaite, 2022 ; Ratzan et al., 2020 ; Stolow et al., 2020 ); empathic, compassionate communication ( Finset et al., 2020 ; Malecki et al., 2021 ; Bui et al., 2021 ); acknowledging uncertainty ( Finset et al., 2020 ; Porat et al., 2020 ; Ratzan et al., 2020 ; Wong and Jensen, 2020 ; Zhang et al., 2020 ); fostering autonomy ( Habersaat et al., 2020 ; Porat et al., 2020 ; McGlaughlin et al., 2023 ; Williams and Wright, 2022 ); cutting through the ‘infodemic’ ( Finset et al., 2020 ; Ratzan et al., 2020 ). …”

“…fostering autonomy ( Habersaat et al., 2020 ; Porat et al., 2020 ; McGlaughlin et al., 2023 ; Williams and Wright, 2022 );…”

“…For example, McGlaughlin et al. (2023) conducted a survey of the UK public's response to various COVID-related public health messages, finding that messaging perceived to be effective provides “a clear rationale for adhering to measures and a means for the public to take personal responsibility to contribute to managing the virus” (p. 14).…”

Readability and beyond - Health literacy and numeracy and COVID-19 communications in early childhood education: Are we communicating effectively?

“…Applied linguistics investigates real world language use providing further insights into how health information can be parsed and applied. Linguistic and health literacy research into communication of health information during COVID-19 has focused amongst other topics on the infodemic facing the general public [19] , [20] , issues for multilingual communities [21] , [22] , metaphors in COVID-19 discourse [23] and discourse features of health advice (i.e., how is advice phrased) that may shape if and how advice is consumed by the target audiences [19] , [24] , [25] , [26] , [27] , [28] , [29] . Emerging linguistic analyses of how COVID-19 health advice was communicated world-wide via websites [27] , social media [25] and in documents [19] , [26] , [28] , [30] , have crucial implications for the effectiveness of public health communication [31] , [32] .…”

Who We Test For: Aligning Relational and Public Health Responsibilities in COVID-19 Testing in Scotland

“…In the UK, COVID-19 tests were just one among a range of voluntary behavioral interventions that impressed on people their civic duty to contribute to infection control (Andreouli and Brice 2021 ; Herrick 2022 ). The UK government’s COVID-19 public health messaging, also deployed in Scotland, operated along the lines of personal responsibility, “fear appeals” and “moralising messages” (McClaughlin et al 2023 :2), that placed blame for viral prevalence and pressures on national health services on individuals – an approach critiqued as having “deflected attention from the broader systemic failures that characterized the UK’s pandemic response” (Cooper et al 2023 :11). The National Health Service (NHS)’s “Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives” and “Can you look them in the eyes?” television and poster campaigns launched in 2020 and 2021, urged people in Scotland and England to comply with lockdown measures and protective behaviors: hand washing, social distancing, mask wearing, testing when symptomatic, and self-isolating.…”