Have you heard the term PSA before? It stands for Public Service Announcement. You have probably seen some before. If you are around my age you may remember the one with an egg in a frying pan and someone saying “This is your brain on drugs” from the 1980’s. An advertisement is a brief media message designed to sell a product. It can appear in a variety of formats such as an item in your social media feed, a page in a magazine, or a video message on television. A public service announcement is an “advertisement” but instead of selling a product, it is designed to provide information or change a behavior. PSAs are video or radio files created by health organizations, government agencies, and others. Sometimes the goal is to encourage a healthy behavior, such as getting exercise. Other times the goal is to discourage an unhealthy behavior. For instance, there are many PSAs designed to discourage smoking. PSAs are aired on television and radio stations for free as a way for the stations to provide a service in the interest of the public. This is required by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). There are many examples of PSAs over the years. The Ad Council is an organization that started during World War II. It was developed through a “collaboration between the advertising, media, and business communities”. People from advertising agencies donate their time to create messages and the media provides free air time to show the messages. They created Smokey the Bear, McGruff the crime dog, and Just Say No. In public health we also talk about mass media campaigns. A public health media campaign gives health messages to the public using different strategies such as PSAs, billboards, bus and subway signs, and social media posts. Media campaigns can be a useful and cost-effective way to get information to a large number of people. People have studied media campaigns and have learned that there are several strategies that can make them more effective. For instance, we need to make sure the messages are provided in places where people will see them which depends on who you are trying to reach. We have also found that it is useful to pre-test messages, meaning that we see if a small group of people respond well to the message before it is provided to a large group of people. A pandemic requires information to be given to people on a very quick timeline. Since PSAs can reach many people quickly and provide information in a clear and easy to understand way, they can be a great resource. PSA's about COVID-19 have been created to provide information about protective actions people can take such as hand washing or to raise awareness about why it is important to stay home. Others provide information about where to get testing or hotline numbers people can call. The Ad Council has been working on several COVID-19 public service announcements including this one about the Centers for Disease Control and another one that uses Elmo to teach children how to wash their hands. New York State created a PSA designed to encourage people to stay home. This example from Saint Lucia is directed at people who interact with children. It is colorful, provides some good tips, and has someone using sign language to make the video more accessible. To see more examples of COVID-19 PSAs from around the world, see my YouTube playlist.
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On Wednesday of this week, Mayor Garcetti of Los Angeles suggested people wear face masks when going out, and the Governor of Vermont made a similar announcement today. It also came up in the press conference this morning with Governor Cuomo in my state, New York. And, I have seen many friends posting on social media about making and buying cloth face masks. To date, mask guidance from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for the general public has stated that people should wear masks if they are sick or caring for someone who is sick (see image below). However, several opinion leaders, officials, and articles have suggested that the CDC may be changing their guidelines on face mask use. Stat news provides a good update about these potential changes. They explain the main idea is that it might help prevent the spread of COVID-19 from people who are not having symptoms (if you have symptoms you should be staying home). In another article published this week by Ed Yong in the Atlantic, you can read a thorough overview of the mask discussions. He cites a few studies that show that homemade masks can provide some level of protection-you can click through to them in the article. As a public health researcher, we try to provide recommendations based on the evidence. Typically, we look at multiple studies over time to determine what is effective, but as Ed states: “The coronavirus pandemic has moved so quickly that years of social change and academic debate have been compressed into a matter of months. Academic squabbles are informing national policy. Long-standing guidelines are shifting. Within days, an experiment that’s done in a hospital room can affect how people feel about the very air around them, and what they choose to wear on their faces.” So will I be wearing a mask if I go out? Yes! Especially because we have someone at home who is at higher risk for COVID-19 complications. HOWEVER, I will still be focused on staying at home, washing my hands, not touching my face, and keeping up with social distancing. I am NOT at all an expert in face mask use or infectious disease. However, I have been fascinated by the discussion I have seen about mask use by officials, the media, and in my own social networks. And I have been following the changing guidelines. I am working on some research related to communication about face mask use that has been very interesting! Stay tuned…. Image capture from the CDC on 4/3/20. In today's blog, I wanted to help people understand the idea of emergency preparedness: what it is, how it relates to pandemics, and what people do who work in the field. To explore this, I asked my colleague Samantha Penta to answer a few questions. Can you tell me a bit about yourself and what you study? I’m an assistant professor of emergency preparedness in the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at the University at Albany. I view myself as a disaster researcher. My training is in sociology, so I focus on the human and organizational dimension of disasters and other kinds of extreme events. Much of my research has focused on how people and organizations make decisions related to disaster relief, whether that is individuals deciding if and what to donate to disaster relief efforts, or looking at how people plan and implement international medical relief efforts. I’ve studied people’s responses to tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and the Ebola epidemic from 2014-2016, often looking at how people respond and health and medical issues in disasters. People may hear the word 'preparedness' in the media. Can you describe what that means? The term preparedness can be used in a couple different contexts. It can be used to reflect a state of being (i.e. stating that someone or something is prepared). Preparedness is the name for one of the phases of the emergency management cycle, and it can be used to describe the activities and measures people or organizations engage in. In general, when people talk about preparedness in the context of emergency management, they are referring to things people and groups do to better enable them to respond when a disaster takes place. A common example of these kinds of activities is making a disaster plan or stockpiling a three day supply of food and water. Planning allows people to anticipate what will happen in a disaster and front load that decision-making so they can react faster (and potentially more appropriately). Having a supply of food and water means that if something happens making it difficult to acquire supplies after a disaster, people have the flexibility to ride out that disruption. Are preparedness strategies the same for all possible emergencies? Or are there specific preparedness recommendations just for pandemics? Some preparedness strategies adhere to an all-hazards approach, generally meaning that they are applicable across a range of disasters (think relevant across earthquakes, floods, etc.). Others are more specific to some types of events. Still others lie somewhere in the middle. Take planning as an example. Having a plan and the act of planning for a disaster is relevant whether you are preparing for a hurricane or an epidemic, but there are some things specific to hurricane or epidemics that you would plan for. For instance, households may figure out how they will handle childcare if kids have to say home school for both events, but planning for a hurricane would also involve thinking about where a household might evacuate to and how they get there, while a pandemic plan would be focused on how to stay at home. There are some protective actions that are more specific to particular hazards. I have seen pandemic preparedness guides. For instance, King County in Washington has one. Do you think these guides are being used? There are a lot of factors that can shape if and what preparedness activities people engage in. Sometimes this has to do with people’s risk perception—people who don’t anticipate being affected by an event would be less likely to engage in preparedness activity for it. However, even when people want to engage in preparedness, they may face other obstacles in doing so. Some people may want to stockpile three days of food (or for the COVID-19 epidemic, more like 14 days), but do not have the financial resources to do so. What type of people specialize in preparedness work? And some people may wonder what they do when there are no emergencies going on. What are their jobs typically like? Jobs related to emergency management are everywhere. The type of jobs people immediately think of are folks in local, state, or federal government specifically with an emergency management title, often working in an emergency management agency, like FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency). Emergency management is in other areas of government as well. For instance, within Health and Human Services, there is the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response. However, there are emergency management jobs in the non-profit and private sectors too. There are nongovernmental organizations, such as the American Red Cross or Team Rubicon, for which disaster response is their primary mission or one of their missions. In the private sector, large companies will have individuals or entire teams dedicated to continuity of operations. Basically, their jobs are figuring out how to minimize the disruption to keep the company going in a time of crisis. When people in these fields aren’t actively responding to a disaster, they are still doing important emergency management work. They may be engaging in preparedness activities like planning. They are often trying to find ways to reduce the likelihood of these events from happening or reducing the severity of the disruption caused when these events do occur (this is called mitigation in the emergency management world). In many cases, they are also still supporting people, organizations, and communities recover from the previous event. Long term needs persist long after the event itself is over, and people in this field will work to help these folks bounce back for years after a disaster. There is always work to be done in this field, even when skies are blue. Is there anything else you want to add about emergency preparedness for pandemics? With pandemics especially, it is important for people to adopt a community mindset. Actions people take will directly affect the overall duration and severity of the pandemic, and can shape how individuals experience these events. If people are considering gathering with other people rather than staying home, they need to think not just about the risk to themselves, but the risks they are potentially exposing others to. As people purchase supplies for their personal stockpile, it’s important that they make sure they meet their own needs, the extent to which people may purchases beyond their needs directly affects the availability of resources for others. Communities make it through pandemics in large part due to the actions of people within those communities. Everyone has a part to play in making our communities safer. Keep in mind a pandemic is just one type of emergency situation. It is good for everyone to have a preparedness plan and emergency supplies for any type of event that might occur. Learn more at Ready.gov about how you can prepare, including what supplies you should have.
If you would like to learn more about emergency preparedness in general, you can go to the following websites: Centers for Disease Control Department of Homeland Security FEMA By now most of you have heard the phrase “flatten the curve”. But did you know this idea comes from the field of epidemiology, one of the major fields of study in public health?
Epidemiology, called epi for short, is the “the study (scientific, systematic, and data-driven) of the distribution (frequency, pattern) and determinants (causes, risk factors) of health-related states and events (not just diseases) in specified populations (neighborhood, school, city, state, country, global)”. According to the Centers for Disease Control, “the word epidemiology comes from the Greek words epi, meaning on or upon, demos, meaning people, and logos, meaning the study of. In other words, the word epidemiology has its roots in the study of what befalls a population.” Epidemiology experts, known as epidemiologists, study the frequency of events that impact the health of populations and look for patterns that may be happening. They also seek causes of disease or other health concerns. They do not just study infectious disease and disease outbreaks. They also look at injury and violence trends, environmental health issues, birth defects, and cancer, among other topics. Many epidemiologists have either a Masters of Public Health Degree, or a PhD in epidemiology. Some have other degrees as well. Have you ever heard of John Snow? He conducted one of the first epidemiology type studies in London where there was a big cholera outbreak. He figured out it was being caused by a water pump on Broad Street that was a main source of water. I found this easy to understand 5 minute video if you want to learn more about him and what he did. His work eventually led to major changes in water systems. Some epidemiologists work at universities as professors. These epidemiologists do research, teach classes, and train future epidemiologists who will go on to work in the field. Others work in research centers or institutes. There are many epidemiologists on twitter who are sharing some great information…if you are on twitter check out the hashtag #AnActualEpidemiologist to find some to follow. Other epidemiologists work at all levels of government. This letter from an epidemiologist who works at a local health department in Virginia gives you a sense of what they do at the local level. Epidemiologists also work at a range of other places such as insurance companies and hospitals. If you want to learn more about epidemiology and how outbreaks are studied, this free course is now being offered by Johns Hopkins at Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/learn/covid19-epidemiology You can learn more about “epi curves” at this CDC link in just ten minutes: https://www.cdc.gov/training/QuickLearns/epimode/ The CDC also has resources for classrooms if you are looking for activities to use with your children or students: https://www.cdc.gov/careerpaths/k12teacherroadmap/classroom/index.htm |
AuthorJennifer Manganello is a public health professor and mom of two boys living in upstate New York. Archives |