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Researchers find flaws in CDC's media response to Ebola outbreak

TORONTO — The CDC’s media response to the Ebola outbreak had significant room for improvement and could have benefited from following previously established WHO recommendations, Daniel Witter, MD, PhD, said here at the American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting.

“We operate under the assertion that the way information is conveyed to people directly affects their mood, thinking and behavior … This is something we do on a daily basis,” he said. “Also, risk perception about potentially dangerous situations is very anxiety-provoking, and anxiety that’s inappropriately treated can lead to maladaptive behavioral responses and, again, these are things we see daily.”

Daniel Witter

Following the SARS outbreak, in 2004 WHO published risk communication recommendations developed by experts Peter M. Sandman, MD, and Jody Lanard, MD.

Witter, who is a second-year psychiatry resident at the University of Florida, provided a sampling of the recommendations, which state the following:

1. Do not over reassure.
2. Acknowledge uncertainty.
3. Do not ridicule the public’s emotions.
4. Establish your own humanity.
5. Tell people what to expect.
6. Offer people things to do.
7. Acknowledge errors, deficiencies and misbehaviors.

Using these recommendations, Witter and colleagues conducted a qualitative analysis of transcripts from three Ebola news briefings held in October by CDC director Thomas Frieden, MD. The researchers were interested in identifying instances where the message appropriately followed or violated the guidelines set forth by WHO.  

Based on their analysis, they determined Frieden was “at his best in establishing humanity and acknowledging deficiencies about specific aspects of how the Ebola crisis was handled” in the U.S., and especially in Texas, Witter said. They felt the weakest area was over-reassurance.  

“Next we’re going to develop a metric based on guidelines to evaluate any given media message about infectious disease outbreaks to see if we can get inter-rater reliability where we could have immediate feedback on [these] messages to help develop more appropriate risk communication in the future,” he said. “Ultimately we’d like to see if improved risk communication could enhance public response in infectious disease outbreaks.” – by Stacey L. Adams

Disclosure: Witter reports no relevant financial disclosures.

Reference:

Witter D. #P1-208. Presented at: American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting; May 16-20, 2015; Toronto.

Editor's Note: On May 18, we corrected this article to clarify that the recommendations made by Lanard and Sandman are not sanctioned WHO guidelines. The Editors regret this error.