Fear, Sex, and Pandemic - Part 7 - How to Get It Right
How we communicate about emergency preparedness is a way that does work:
Switch the focus of the call to action from consequences to benefits. It makes sense for individuals and companies to take steps to avoid illness and disruptions. A population with fewer illnesses is a more productive, healthier and happier population. Quantify the benefit of health. Increases in productivity, quality of life, life expectancy, thriving families,
Remind people that staying healthy helps others. The current focus has been on the direct threat to individuals and their families if they don't prepare. People have most two likely options: feel vulnerable, which usually triggers the counter-productive stress response and non sustainable actions, or secretly convinced that they are going to be fine, or fated to go, so move the focus off them to their ability to change the world and help others simply by making simple changes to their habits that will make them unlikely to get sick. This attitude reflects reality as well. Most people won't face the worst consequences of the pandemic, but some will. We all need to work together to help everyone avoid harm.
Focus the attention of communication efforts on the actual changes needed to make pandemic reduction the most likely outcome of every day behavior. Spend more time defining what specific changes need to take place to make health the most likely outcome. What practices are being adopted by schools, organizations and companies that bring about the desired change-regardless of whether they realize it has benefits to pandemic reduction. Help those changes become mainstream.
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