RAPID: Trust in Public Health Information During a Pandemic

这项危机信息学研究将提供普通人群如何应对COVID-19大流行的证据，并与卫生保健工作者广泛分享研究结果，以帮助他们限制对社会的负面影响，并鼓励公民采取适当行动减少疾病的传播。从长期来看，这些成果将有助于改善我们对未来流行病的准备工作。它将增进我们对社交媒体在公众了解和应对大流行方面所起作用的理解，并将推进卫生信息学和卫生传播领域的信息框架工作。其中一些结果可以帮助社会和政府为潜在的突发事件做好准备，比如生物恐怖主义和其他意想不到的大规模紧急情况。在全球卫生危机期间，检疫和隔离等公共卫生干预措施可以限制病毒的传播，降低发病率和死亡率，同时减少对卫生保健系统的影响。健康教育干预措施，特别是通过社交媒体的干预措施，对于确保公众听取专家的建议至关重要。鉴于老年人的电子卫生素养普遍较低，并且鉴于大流行病对老年人的影响越来越大，特别是COVID-19疫情，确保老年人及其照顾者了解和信任公共卫生信息对于挽救生命至关重要。这项混合方法研究将允许从目前正在经历大流行的人群中快速和安全地收集数据，以了解在真实环境中影响对当前公共卫生信息干预措施信任的因素。其在线数据收集不会危及研究人员或参与者的健康，寻求分层样本，包括大量老年人，并采用稳健的招聘策略。这项工作将分三个严格但迅速的阶段完成：(1)一项调查，包括一系列先前经过验证的工具以及针对当前COVID-19大流行的开放式问题；(2)通过实验比较不同健康信息的有效性；(3)一套建议，可以指导公共卫生官员决定如何根据年龄和电子卫生素养等因素为特定受众量身定制信息。人类受试者在真实情景和假设情景中的表现不同，因此，在大流行期间评估人们对公共卫生干预措施的反应的最佳时机是在一场非常重大的干预措施正在进行时。COVID-19提供了一个难得的机会，可以在人们经历正在调查的现象时从他们那里收集数据。该项目将确定影响对公共卫生信息信任的因素，以及如何调整公共卫生信息干预措施，使其对不同年龄的人有效。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This research in crisis informatics will provide evidence of how the general population is reacting to the COVID-19 pandemic and share the findings broadly with healthcare workers to help them limit the negative effects on society and encourage citizens to take appropriate actions to reduce the spread of the disease. Over the longer term, the results will contribute to improvements in our preparedness for future pandemics. It will increase our understanding of the role that social media plays in public understanding of and response to a pandemic, and also will advance work on message framing within health informatics and health communication. Some of the results could help society and government prepare for potential contingencies such as bioterrorism and other unexpected large-scale emergencies. During a global health crisis, public health interventions such as quarantine and isolation can limit the spread of the virus, reducing morbidity and mortality while reducing the impact on the health care system. Health education interventions, particularly via social media, are critical for ensuring that the general public heeds recommendations from experts. Given the generally low e-health literacy of older adults, and in light of the increased impact that pandemics have on older adults, as is particularly the case for COVID-19, ensuring that older adults and their caregivers understand and trust public health information is critical for saving lives. This mixed-method study will allow quick and safe collection of data from people currently experiencing a pandemic, to understand the factors that influence trust in current public health information interventions in a real setting. Its online data collection will not risk the health of researchers or participants, seeking a stratified sample including a significant number of older adults and employing a robust recruitment strategy. The work will be done in three rigorous but swift stages: (1) a survey, including a battery of previously validated instruments along with open-ended questions specific to the current COVID-19 pandemic; (2) an experiment to compare the effectiveness of different health messages; and (3) a set of recommendations that can guide public health officials in deciding how to tailor messages for particular audiences based on factors such as age and e-health literacy. Human subjects perform differently in real versus hypothetical scenarios, so the best time to evaluate how people react to public health interventions during a pandemic is when a very significant one is in process. COVID-19 represents a rare opportunity to collect data from people while they are experiencing the phenomenon under investigation. This project will identify factors that influence trust in public health information, and how public health information interventions can be tailored to be effective for people of various ages.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.