As society finds themselves in the midst of a global health crisis, public health messaging has become more vital than ever before. Though this research study was initiated before the COVID-19 crisis, the potential correlation it seeks to illuminate between language use and public risk perception and behaviour during health crises continues to become increasingly relevant.
Research Poster
Problem Statement
Much of the existing research on health crisis and outbreak communications has focused on the rates of adoption of recommended health behaviours in response to key messaging, such as vaccination. Little research has focused on the construction of these messages themselves with these findings, whether specific language use or framing may influence the perception and behaviour of subjects.
During past health crises, public messages have contributed to widespread panic, fear, and a distrust of government organizations. As these organizations are reliant on the willingness of the public to follow recommended health advice during crises, communicators must recognize how the construction of their messages influence public opinion and behaviour.
Methods
A quantitative research design was conducted to compare the effects of language use on risk perception and protective behavioural intentions during a hypothetical health crisis. Fourty-four participants were included in the study, which took place virtually through an online survey platform. The participants were randomly provided one of two press releases, one drafted using strictly informational language and one that included emotional language, regarding a hypothetical infectious disease outbreak.
The press releases were created by adapting the structure and language use of authentic documents released by the World Health Organization (WHO) during past infectious disease outbreaks. Both documents contained the same information regarding infection rates, government response, and disease symptoms, with only the descriptive language being changed. While the informational release uses plain language and scientific descriptors, the emotional press release includes emotionally-charged language (i.e. lethal, deadly, severe, attack, and urging), emotional adjectives (i.e. fearful, anxious), and semantic intensifiers (i.e. disastrous, severe). The press releases also included differences in the framing of health consequences, with the informational release mentioning personal consequences, while the emotional release described consequences to “loved ones”.
After being presented either the emotional or informational press release, all participants completed the same online questionnaire to collect immediate responses. This Likert-scale questionnaire included 10 questions that gathered participants' evaluation of severity, risk perception, and the likelihood of taking preventative or protective measures in the hypothetical health scenario.
Results
Risk Perception
After importing and analyzing the questionnaire responses using IBM’s SPSS software, no statistically significant difference was found between participants’ risk perception between the two different press releases. As shown in Figure 2, though there are slight differences between the average responses of risk perception, these differences are not considered significant when accounting for the standard deviation of the data sets. Similarly, Figure 3 shows a slightly higher average perception of overall severity in the emotional group compared to the control group, however, this difference is not large enough to assume a correlation.
Protective Behaviours
Similar to the findings of risk perception, no statistically significant correlation was found between the type of language used and the likelihood of taking protective behaviours. Though the emotional group does show a slightly higher likelihood of preventative measures and public avoidance and the informational group displays a slightly higher average of vaccination, as displayed in Figure 4, these differences are too small to assume a causal relationship between variables.
Analysis
Several factors must be considered when analyzing the results of this study. First, and ultimately the most influential, was the global enviroment during the time of this research. As the online questionnaires were distributed and data was collected, the health crisis of COVID-19 began and quickly developed into a global pandemic. Due to the nature of the infectious disease scenario presented in this research, which was drafted before COVID-19, it is reasonable to assume that external factors may have influenced the risk perceptions presented by participants.
A second limitation of this research is the small population size, which may have contributed to the statistically insignificant results. Perhaps with a larger group of participants, the slight differences displayed between the informational and emotional groups may become significant and suggest a potential causal relationship.
It has therefore been concluded that further investigation is needed by researchers to determine the effects of language use within healthcare communications on risk perception and protective behaviour during public health crises. As an incredibly important area of research, one that is becoming increasingly relevant in society, understanding the way communication strategies impact public perception is vital for the well-being of our society during global health crises.
Credits:
Created with images by Семен Саливанчук - "Press conference. Public speaker giving talk to Television camera. News conference. An event with a video camera. press and media in public news coverage event for reporter and mass communication" • photosoup - "conference microphones in a meeting room" • VK Studio - "Sideways shot of man tourist returned from abroad, wears medical mask to prevent virus, has online communication via cellular, comes to make necessary purchases. Health awareness concept. Covid-19" • Jacqueline Kelly - "From the Creatives Working collection. Full collection at kellybrito.com" • sebra - "Business people are exchanging document"