A Systematic Review of Literature on Effectiveness of Training in Emergency Risk Communication

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  • Ann Neville Miller
    University of Central Florida, Orlando
  • Timothy Sellnow
    University of Central Florida, Orlando
  • Lindsay Neuberger
    University of Central Florida, Orlando
  • Andrew Todd
    University of Central Florida, Orlando
  • Rebecca Freihaut
    Sarasota County Libraries, Sarasota, Florida, USA
  • Jane Noyes
  • Tomas Allen
    World Health Organization, Geneva
  • Nyka Alexander
    World Health Organization, Geneva
  • Marsha Vanderford
    World Health Organization, Geneva
  • Gaya Gamhewage
    World Health Organization, Geneva

Although disaster preparedness training is regularly conducted for a range of health-related professions, little evidence-based guidance is available about how best to actually develop capacity in staff for conducting emergency risk communication. This article presents results of a systematic review undertaken to inform the development of World Health Organization guidelines for risk communication during public health and humanitarian emergencies. A total of 6,720 articles were screened, with 24 articles identified for final analysis. The majority of research studies identified were conducted in the United States, were either disaster general or focused on infectious disease outbreak, involved in-service training, and used uncontrolled quantitative or mixed method research designs. Synthesized findings suggest that risk communication training should include a focus on collaboration across agencies, training in working with media, and emphasis on designing messages for specific audience needs. However, certainty of findings was at best moderate due to lack of methodological rigor in most studies.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)612-629
Number of pages19
JournalJournal of Health Communication
Volume22
Issue number7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 6 Jul 2017

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