RAPID: An Evolving Risk Communication Challenge: The Risk Salience of Zika Virus Infection in an Environment of Shifting Scientific, Social, and Policy Uncertainty and Discourse

威胁无处不在：从平凡的，如车祸，到存在的，如全球流行病或核战争。我们如何感知和管理这些威胁与许多因素有关，包括威胁感觉有多“真实”（其风险显著性），我们对提醒我们威胁及其潜在后果的信息来源的信心，我们对干预有效性的信心以及我们使用它的能力，以及我们对推动我们承担风险或规避风险的心理倾向的依赖。新出现的寨卡病毒是了解这些方面的一个窗口，对那些从事公共卫生风险沟通的人来说，这是一个至关重要的机会。本研究考察了社会、科学和政策线索如何影响美国公众对寨卡病毒风险的认识，以及公众对临床、环境和行为干预的接受程度。通过在一年的时间里收集一系列四次横断面人口调查，本研究说明了风险显著性是如何演变的，以及它可能受到特定沟通和信息渠道影响的程度。分析揭示了社会、科学和政策话语如何促进公众对风险的理解，并进一步促进我们对沟通策略的理解。了解信息传递如何随着科学知识的发展而变化，可以改善针对未来威胁的风险沟通。这些发现有助于风险沟通的文献，这些文献通常包括对信息的回顾性分析，而不是对不确定时期的信息进行前瞻性研究。它还有助于在人群面临新病原体威胁时制定更精确和有效的风险沟通策略。总的来说，这项研究有助于几个学科的观点，特别是风险评估，危害相关决策和公共卫生风险沟通。对寨卡病毒的日益关注提供了一个机会，可以研究随着威胁的临近，风险显著性是如何实时演变的。目前，没有针对寨卡病毒感染的疫苗或治疗方法，对病毒本身、媒介、疾病发病机制甚至流行病学的科学理解仍然有限。测量和绘制美国公众对这一威胁的看法以及它如何受到社会、科学和政策线索的影响的机会是有时间限制的，因为受病毒影响的地理位置随着时间的推移而扩大，而数据是短暂的。本研究考察了社会、科学和政策线索如何随着时间的推移影响美国公众对风险的看法，以及公众对临床、环境和行为干预的接受程度。该研究的具体目的是：(1)绘制寨卡病毒暴露和确定性增加时风险显著性的轨迹；(2)识别和分析社会、科学和政策线索和话语对风险显著性的影响；(3)描述和分析群体在风险感知、政策、规划和临床干预的接受度方面的态度演变差异。开发了两个数据集来调查这些研究目标。第一个是对美国南部育龄妇女（被选为特别易受伤害的亚群体）进行的重复横断面全国电话调查，共有1200名受访者。这些数据在一年的时间里每季度收集一次。与主要数据并行，第二个数据集量化了在调查工作之前的一段时间内，在哨兵媒体来源中观察到的社会、科学和政策线索的数量和类型。研究小组将这些媒体数据与原始数据合并，并测试它们与受访者的关联。风险突出。这些发现为风险沟通的整体文献做出了贡献，这些文献通常包括对信息的回顾性分析，而不是对不确定时期的信息进行前瞻性研究。随着美国寨卡病例数量的增加，随着小头畸形婴儿出生数量的增加，以及媒体报道的戏剧性故事越来越频繁，信息传递可能会随着时间的推移而发生变化。展示这种信息传递如何随着科学知识的发展而变化，可以改善对未来威胁的风险沟通。

Threats are all around us: from the mundane, such as auto accidents, to the existential, such as global pandemics or nuclear war. How we perceive and manage these threats is related to a number of factors including how "real" the threat feels (its risk salience), our confidence in the sources of information alerting us to the threat and its potential consequences, our faith in the effectiveness of an intervention and in our ability to employ it, and our reliance upon psychological leanings that propel us to being risk-tolerant or risk-averse. The newly emerging Zika virus is a window into many of these facets, and a critically-important opportunity for those engaged in public health risk communication. This research examines how social, scientific, and policy cues influence the U.S. public's appreciation of the risk of Zika virus over time, as well as the public's receptivity to clinical, environmental, and behavioral interventions. By collecting a series of four cross-sectional population surveys over the course of a year, this research illustrates how risk salience evolves, and the extent to which it may be influenced by specific communication and information channels. Analyses reveal how social, scientific, and policy discourse contribute to public understandings of risk and further our understandings of communication strategies. Understanding how messaging changes with evolving scientific knowledge improves risk communication for future threats. These findings contribute to the literature of risk communication, which is often comprised of retrospective analyses of messages, rather than prospective studies of messaging in times of uncertainty. It also helps develop more refined and effective risk communication strategies when populations are faced with the threat of a novel pathogen. Overall, this research contributes to several disciplinary perspectives, notably those of risk assessment, hazard-related decision making, and public health risk communication.The rising attention to the Zika virus offers an opportunity to examine how risk salience evolves in real-time as the threat approaches. Currently, there are no vaccines or therapies for the Zika viral infection, and there is still limited scientific understanding of the virus itself, the vectors, the disease pathogenesis, or even the epidemiology. The opportunity to measure and chart the U.S. public's perception of this threat - and how it is influenced by social, scientific, and policy cues - is time-bound, as the geographic exposure to the virus expands over time, and the data are ephemeral. This research examines how social, scientific, and policy cues influence the US public's perception of the risk over time, as well as the public's receptivity to clinical, environmental, and behavioral interventions. The specific aims of the research are to: (1) chart the trajectory of risk salience as exposure and certainty of the Zika virus increases; (2) identify and analyze the impact of social, scientific, and policy cues and discourse on risk salience; and (3) describe and analyze group differences in the evolving attitudes related to risk perception, as well as receptivity to policy, programmatic, and clinical interventions. Two data sets are developed to investigate these research aims. The first is a repeated cross-sectional national phone survey with an oversample of women of child-bearing age in the US Southern Tier (selected as a sub-population of particular vulnerability), totaling 1,200 respondents. These data are collected quarterly over a year-long period. In parallel with the primary data, a second data set quantifies the number and type of social, scientific, and policy cues observed in sentinel media sources during the time period immediately preceding the survey work. The research team merges these media data with the primary data and tests for their association with respondents? risk salience. The findings contribute to the overall literature of risk communication, which is often comprised of retrospective analyses of messages, rather than prospective studies of messaging in times of uncertainty. It is possible that messaging will change over time as the number of Zika cases increases in the US, as the number of microcephalic infant births increase, and as dramatic stories are reported with greater frequency in the press. Demonstrating how this messaging changes with evolving scientific knowledge improves risk communication for future threats.