Emergencies: Emergency risk communication guidance

During public health emergencies, people need to know what health risks they face, and what actions they can take to protect their lives, their health, their families and communities.

Accurate information, provided early, often, and in language and channels people understand, trust and use, enables people to make choices that can protect them from health hazards threatening their lives and well-being.

WHO has manuals, training modules and other forms of emergency communication and risk communication guidance based on expert opinion or lessons drawn from major environmental disasters, such as the SARS outbreak of 2003 and the H1N1 influenza pandemic of 2009, rather than systematic analysis of the evidence. This is the first ever evidence-based risk communications guidance.

The recommendations in this guidance are based on a systematic search of the evidence on key issues in emergency risk communication practice and experience. Not only was the academic structured evidence searched but also ‘grey literature’ to ensure that the lessons learned from recent emergencies, such as the West African Ebola virus disease outbreak in 2014–2015 and the global Zika virus outbreak in 2015–2016, were captured and explored fully.

• Evidence for decision making

These guidelines were developed for policy- and decision-makers responsible for managing emergencies, particularly the public health aspects of emergencies, and practitioners responsible for risk communication before, during and after health emergencies.

Other groups expected to use these guidelines are front-line responders, local, national and international development partners, civil society, the private sector and all organizations, private and public, involved in emergency preparedness and response.

These guidelines provide WHO Member States, partners and stakeholders involved in emergency preparedness and response with evidence-based, up-to-date, systems-focused guidance on:

• building trust and engaging with communities and affected populations;
• integrating risk communication into existing national and local emergency preparedness and response structures, including building capacity for risk communication;
• emergency risk communication practice - from planning, messaging, channels and methods of communication and engagement to monitoring and evaluation - based on a systematic assessment of the evidence on what worked and what did not work during recent emergencies.