CSPC2016

Organized by, World Federation of Science Journalists, Damien Chalaud

Just as the world’s attention forgets the devastating impact of the Ebola virus epidemic it is now time to confront the new uncertainties of the Zika virus outbreak.

The unprecedented Ebola epidemic in West Africa was not just a health crisis. It was also an information crisis. It exposed not only failures in the local and international response to a deadly epidemic, but the ineffectiveness of using top down messages to reach communities that exist largely in an information blackout. Poor communication clearly heightened apprehension among the public, while potentially seeding confusion among scientists and journalists who reported the outbreak. The lack of engagement with local communities led to high levels of mistrust, low compliance with the behavior changes needed to reduce transmission, and the spread of rumors.

In the aftermath of Ebola, the international community faced criticism for its inadequate response to the epidemic. While many lessons can be drawn from the epidemic in preparation for future public health emergencies, one of the top recommendations in the World Health Organization’s “Report of the Ebola Interim Assessment panel”, was the need for more cooperation and communication between all the stakeholders: international humanitarian community, health/scientific community, government agencies, media, etc.

Notwithstanding, the world is still ill-prepared to respond to severe and sustained outbreaks such as Ebola and other air-borne diseases. The complex Ebola crisis underlined that research uptake is necessarily a multi-directional process that requires interaction and iteration with stakeholders, engagement with intermediaries and the audiences they target. The proposed panel discussion will look to address some of the following topics by using the Ebola case study:

The barriers to creating a culture of evidence use in the wider public. 
While there have been many efforts to increase uptake among high-level decision-makers in policy and practice, there has been considerably less engagement with the wider public to ensure that they are equally well-informed and empowered.  The public’s primary information access points – the media and civil society organizations – have faced a variety of individual and institutional barriers that have prevented them from most effectively accessing, appraising and translating evidence to their target audiences.

1. Limited access to evidence. One of the biggest challenges to evidence use is simply being able to find and then access it.

2. Limited capacity to appraise evidence. Where there are barriers to accessing evidence, it becomes all the more important to critique what is available. Yet, the longer you search for evidence, the less time you have to consider it, and thus, the less useful it can be (or potentially more harmful it can be) in its practical applications, especially at a local level where it often competes with traditional knowledge systems.

3. Limited capacity to translate and communicate evidence. Even when intermediaries are able to access and appraise evidence, there still exist a number of barriers to translating and communicating that evidence to a public audience.