Risk Communication for Emergency Management of Pandemic Prevention and Control in China: A Comparative Study of SARS and H7N9

Abstract

Many large-scaled pandemics and disease outbreaks have been recorded in human history, causing enormous negative impacts on health, economies, and even affecting international security in the world. Recent years have seen many rapidly spreading outbreaks such as the Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, SARS, H5N1 influenza, H1N1 influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), Ebola and the Zika virus. Not all of these diseases are new, but population movements have increased in both scale and speed, so there are greater risks that infectious diseases will spread rapidly to multiple countries. Pandemic crises have had serious consequences on health, tourism, travel, trade and have even caused significant political and social disruptions. Thus, effective public health emergency management to prevent and control pandemics is very important. For effective emergency management of pandemics, which are inherently unpredictable and widespread, preparedness, timely decision-making and comprehensive response involving relevant sectors are critical. But adequate preparedness and appropriate response rely on effective communication and coordination among stakeholders as well as the amount of information available at any given time, and these require a multi-sectoral approach with information sharing and communication as key tools for the prevention and management of infectious diseases outbreaks. However, multi-sectoral collaboration, coordination, information sharing and communication are often the key challenges and problems encountered in dealing with public health emergencies.