Gesser-Edelsburg A, Shir-Raz Y, Hayek S, Sassoni-Bar Lev O. Am J Infect Control. 2015 Jul 1;43(7):669-75.
Background: The unexpected developments surrounding the Ebola virus in the United States provide yet another warning that we need to establish communication preparedness. This study examines what the Israeli public knew about Ebola after the initial stages of the outbreak in a country to which Ebola has not spread and assesses the association between knowledge versus worries and concerns about contracting Ebola.
Gesser-Edelsburg A, Shir-Raz Y, Hayek S, Sassoni-Bar Lev O. Targeting Ebola International Congress 2015: Scientific Bases & Applications, Pasteur Institute, Paris, May 28‐29, 2015.
The greatest challenges that the organizations face is not only to convey knowledge, but also to find ways to convey comprehensive information that reflects uncertainty and empowers the public to make fact‐based decisions about health.
Gesser‐Edelsburg A, Shir‐Raz Y. Targeting Ebola International Congress 2015: Scientific Bases & Applications, Pasteur Institute, Paris, May 28‐29, 2015.
Gesser-Edelsburg A, Shir-Raz Y, Bar-Lev OS, James JJ, Green MS. Targeting Ebola International Congress 2015: Scientific Bases & Applications, Pasteur Institute, Paris, May 28‐29, 2015.
As the health editor of a prominent UK newspaper like The Guardian, Sarah Boseley has often faced the challenge of communicating uncertainty when dealing with health issues. This is even harder in the case of infectious disease outbreaks, when not all the information is always available from the beginning. Nevertheless, media should keep on trying to explain the public that sometimes even scientists and public health authorities have to say: “We don’t know”.
An infectious diseases specialist in London, Geraldine O’Hara spent two months in Sierra Leone with Médecins sans Frontières last year, at the peak of the Ebola crisis. While working in an Ebola treatment centre, she was asked to share her experience on Radio 4, a national radio station in UK. We met her at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, where she told us about how she learnt such a new job and how she realized that real-life stories might greatly improve science communication.
