Grant: Operating Grant

The global community, including Canada, is in the middle of an H1N1 outbreak and preparing for a more severe second wave in the fall. It is important to use this window of opportunity to examine how effectively federal, provincial and regional pandemic plans have been implemented. From discussions with our Decision-Maker Advisory Team we know that many communications plans were prepared in advance of any outbreak. However, all of these different jurisdictional public health offices have had to modify their respective communications messaging to manage the H1N1 outbreak that, so far, has been much less severe than had been originally anticipated in the pandemic preparedness plans. One of the biggest challenges they have faced is trying to ensure that their messaging is hitting the right tone in balancing public attention to prevention activities while minimizing public fear/concern. In this project, we are interested in studying: 1) how well different communications plans related to H1N1 were implemented and modified as knowledge evolved during the outbreak; 2) how different public health agencies, front-line health care workers, and the public perceived the effectiveness of the communications messaging during the H1N1 outbreak; and 3) to look at some of the issues that arose when agencies needed to communicate relevant information related to the availability of an H1N1 vaccine in the fall and winter of 2009-2010 and any future waves of the outbreak. We expect that this project will be able to deliver some concrete recommendations of how to improve risk communication planning for future outbreaks to better meet the information needs of front-line health care workers and the Canadian public.