Information channel preference in health crisis: Exploring the roles of perceived risk, preparedness, knowledge, and intent to follow directives

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2019.05.015Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The results yield evidence that people rely on different information channels during routine and crisis situations.

  • There are differences in perceived risk, knowledge, and preparedness based on individuals’ information channel preference.

  • Finally, the results indicate that people utilize different information channels based on their intent to follow directions.

Abstract

The 2016 Zika virus epidemic presented a serious threat to public health and left publics confused and anxious about their risks. A survey (n = 370) was distributed in late Summer 2016 in the U.S., when public anxiety regarding Zika was peaking. Results indicate interesting differences in channel preferences based on audiences’ preparedness, risk, and intention to follow crisis directives. Television news was the most important channels for Zika information, indicating the continued importance of traditional media in crisis communication.

Introduction

In 2016, the World Health Organization declared Zika an international health emergency as increasing cases of microcephaly, a severe birth defect that may be caused by Zika, emerged. In 2017, The New York Times reported that 10 women who had contracted Zika virus in the U.S. had delivered babies with birth defects (Belluck, 2017). Given the rapid spread of the disease in South America and its impact on a vulnerable population, pregnant women, Zika led to anxious publics with uncertainties surrounding their risks. With so much public attention to Zika, especially as the world prepared for the 2016 Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro, one of the most pressing challenges for public health officials, in addition to managing the outbreak of the disease itself, was combatting misinformation with accurate information and resources about the threat and risks it imposed (Avery, 2017; Sharma, Yadav, Yadav, & Ferdinand, 2017; Venkatraman, Mukhija, Kumar, & Nagpal, 2016). The magnitude of the challenge of Zika management underscores the importance of informing channel selection for public health interventions with evidence collected real-time during a global public health crisis.

Previous research has called for more focus on audience reception and consumption of health information (Avery, 2010). In response, several studies have explored how audiences consume and process information during health crisis events (e.g., Avery & Lariscy, 2014; Hu & Zhang, 2014; Jang & Baek, 2019; Park & Avery, 2018). Few, however, have taken a comprehensive approach to understanding the effects of information channel use on variables such as perceived risk, crisis preparedness, knowledge, or intent to follow safeguarding instructions. What is still missing from a holistic understanding of audience response to health crisis information is if and how information channel affects processing and subsequent attitudes and behaviors. To that end, this research explores the relationships between information channels publics used to acquire health information during the Zika outbreak and attitudinal and behavioral responses.

A national survey (N = 370) was conducted during late Summer 2016, when anxieties about the threat of Zika peaked in the U.S., to understand what information channels people were using to acquire Zika information and, what, if any, were the relationships of perceived risk, preparedness, knowledge, and intent to follow safeguarding directives with information channel use. The applied value of this research is clear, as its results can yield important best practices for practitioners in the health arena and beyond for selecting the most effective channels for information dissemination.

Using Griffin, Dunwoody and Neuwirth’s (1999) model of risk information seeking and processing (RISP), this research examines how individual characteristics affect risk information seeking and response. The study extends Griffin et al.’s (1999) RISP model by developing one of the three major factors of the model, relevant channel beliefs, that influence risk information seeking in both routine and nonroutine channels as well as the time and effort spent analyzing that information. Practical implications include informing channel selection to enhance preparedness, knowledge, and intent to follow directives. Crisis and risk situations including health, weather emergencies, and food recalls require practitioners to strategically select information channels that will reach audiences quickly and with accurate information to promote adherence to safeguarding directives (Park & Avery, 2018). These unique real-time data collected during the crisis represent public response to information in a more externally valid way than retrospective reports or hypothetical scenarios allow to inform those efforts. The results of this study also extend theoretical models informing channel selection for public health information dissemination.

Section snippets

Literature review

Previous research has demonstrated that both source credibility and knowledge of content affect perceptions of online health information (Eastin, 2001). This is especially true during crisis events, when selected information form and source must be considered along with crisis response strategy (Liu, Austin, & Jin, 2011). As the Zika virus began to spread, a lack of public knowledge about the disease was further compounded by misinformation disseminated over the Internet. Reuters (2016)

Risk information seeking and processing model (RISP)

Griffin et al. (1999) note that both scholars and practitioners need to examine interactions between audience information processing and the message in order to understand responses to risk messages and promote safeguarding behaviors. Recently, Pokrywczynski, Griffin, and Calhoun (2019)) adopted the model in a study on sexual aggression risk and found that negative affect (worry and anger) had a positive influence on risk information-seeking. Rose, Toman, and Olsen (2017)) demonstrated the

Data collection

To answer the research questions, participants (N  = 370) were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Previous studies support the idea that participants recruited via MTurk are similar to other online samples and more representative of the U.S. population than convenience samples (Berinsky, Huber, & Lenz, 2012; Casler, Bickel, & Hackett, 2013). Also, MTurk samples have been shown to outperform professional panel samples in terms of data quality (Kees, Berry, Burton, & Sheehan, 2017).

Participants

Among the respondents, 56.5% (n = 209) reported their gender as female, 42.4% (n = 157) as male, and 1.1% (n = 4) as other. Ages of respondents ranged from 18 to 72 years old, with the average age of 35.3 (SD = 11.7). Respondents were from 46 different states of the U.S. With respect to ethnicity, 78.1% (n = 289) were Caucasian, 8.6% (n = 32) were African American, and 7.8% (n = 29) were Asian. For education, 9.5% (n = 35) had a high school degree, 25.9% (n = 96) had some college but no degree,

Discussion

Public relations research has documented that information form and source affect publics’ information-seeking behaviors (Austin, Liu, & Jin, 2012), the importance of strategically aligning form and source of information (Liu et al., 2011), and differences in channel preferences based on involvement levels and context (routine or crisis) (Avery, 2010). However, over the past few years, scholars pervasively note that social media have (1) drastically changed how people seek and use health

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