RAPID: Evaluating Ebola Message Effects over Time: Risk Perceptions, Trust in and Attributions of Responsibility to Institutions, Personal Behavior and Policy Support

虽然埃博拉病毒可能在西非造成重大灾难，但它对美国公共卫生的影响可能很小，更多的是由恐惧而不是病毒的传播造成的。然而，对美国人对公共卫生当局的信任的影响，以及对未来流行病的影响，以及其他影响，可能要大得多。开展研究，跟踪公众对埃博拉风险和管理业绩的看法变化，特别是其对信任和不同机构责任归属的影响（例如，疾病控制和预防中心、卫生与公众服务部、奥巴马政府、国会、医院）以及来自西非的个别医疗专业人员和旅行者，对于帮助预测公众对未来流行病威胁的反应至关重要。鉴于目前关于埃博拉风险和机构绩效的信息多种多样且相互矛盾，我们还必须了解这些信息如何影响公众对埃博拉风险和机构绩效的解释。结果可以帮助改善公共卫生管理和沟通，再加上帮助整合理论的风险认知，信任机构，归因于机构的责任，风险communication.This研究涉及五个调查超过6个月，从不同的国家在线面板相同的随机抽样人群，利用纵向调查实验的力量，以评估随着时间的推移变化的原因。该研究的实验部分测试了替代消息在这段时间内的影响，跟踪它们与信任和责任归因提供的解释性屏幕的互动。两条信息涉及根据世卫组织建议的21天隔离：一条信息重复当局的保证，即隔离时间足够长，受影响的人在释放后不会出现症状，另一条信息（根据专家分析）警告说，在此期间之后出现症状的风险很小，但不是零。除了测试后一种信息对判断风险、信任和支持21天隔离限制的影响外，该研究还测试了刺激反驳以减少隔离期后期反击的恐慌效应的接种策略。第三个信息，也是一个接种信息，强调公共卫生系统的能力，尽管不可避免的错误，看看这是如何影响信任和责任归因评级。在事件发生前的情况下，这种接种似乎可以减少公众对恐怖主义事件的过度反应，但在埃博拉病毒的持续管理中可能会适得其反。最后一条信息将审查有关具体政策的论点（例如，如何将受埃博拉影响的西非国家的人挡在美国之外，或在此期间传播疾病）。不同的信念，态度和行为意图测量跟踪这些操纵的影响，并测试潜在的调节剂（例如，世界观，影响，政治意识形态和党派）。最后，本研究首次探讨了机构之间的感知关系如何影响信任和归因（例如，认为疾病预防控制中心可以自由采取行动对抗埃博拉病毒，不受其他机构的限制，这可能会增加其对随后表现失败的判断责任）。

While Ebola threatens a major catastrophe in West Africa, its public health impacts in the U.S. are likely to be minor, shaped more by fear than transmission of the virus. The effect, however, on Americans' trust in public health authorities, and thus the impacts on future epidemics, among other impacts, may be much larger. Research to track changes in public views on Ebola risk and management performance, especially their impacts on trust and attribution of responsibility to varied institutions (e.g., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Health and Human Services, Obama administration, Congress, hospitals), and individual medical professionals and travelers from West Africa, is vital to help foretell public responses to future epidemic threats. Given the diverse and conflicting messages about Ebola risks and institutional performance now present, we also must understand how such messages affect public interpretations of Ebola risk and institutional performance. Results can help improve public health management and communication, plus help integrate theory on risk perception, trust in institutions, attribution of responsibility to institutions, and risk communication.This study involves five surveys over 6 months with the same randomly sampled set of people from a diverse national online panel, exploiting the strength of a longitudinal survey experiment to assess causes of change over time. The experimental part of the study tests effects of alternative messages over this extended period, tracking their interactions with interpretive screens provided by trust and attributions of responsibility. Two messages concern the 21-day quarantine based on WHO recommendations: one message that repeats the authorities' reassurance that this quarantine is long enough that the affected person will not become symptomatic after release, and one that warns (based on expert analyses) of small but non-zero risks that symptoms will appear beyond this period. Besides testing the effect of the latter message on judged risk, trust, and support for the 21-day quarantine limit, the study also tests the inoculation strategy of stimulating counter-arguments to reduce panic effects of later counter-attacks on the quarantine period. A third message, also an inoculation message, stressrd capabilities of the public health system despite inevitable mistakes, to see how this affects trust and responsibility-attribution ratings. In pre-event conditions this kind of inoculation seems to reduce public over-reaction to scary [terrorism] events, but in the midst of ongoing management of Ebola may be counter-productive. The final message will review arguments on specific policies (e.g., how to keep people from Ebola-afflicted West African nations out of the U.S., or from spreading disease while here). Varied belief, attitude and behavioral intention measures tracks effects of these manipulations, and tests potential moderators (e.g., worldview, affect, political ideology and partisanship). Finally, the research includes the first probe of how perceived relations among institutions affect trust and attributions (e.g., belief that CDC was free to act against Ebola without constraints from other institutions may increase its judged responsibility for subsequent failures of performance).