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At the height of the Ebola virus disease epidemic in West Africa, a project funded by the European Union was initiated which aimed to halt transmission and stop the disease spreading to neighbouring countries in the region through community engagement and social and behaviour change communication. The case study documents best practices and lessons learned in Community Engagement and Accountability (CEA) to prevent epidemics in West Africa.
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This review examines Translators without Borders’ initiative aimed at improving communication with communities during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa from November 2014 to February 2015. The review captures examples of good practice, gaps and suggestions for improvement in Translators without Borders’ approach to the Ebola response. Among others, the review acknowledges that commitment by humanitarian agencies to address language barriers and information needs was seen during the Ebola crisis. However, more work remains to be done to advocate and raise awareness for the use of local language in humanitarian response. There is a need to change current approaches to ensure that providing information and communication in languages people can understand is considered a priority in humanitarian response.
The public health communication community has more tools and mechanisms at its disposal than ever before, but is also facing increasingly complex public health challenges ushered in by globalization, urbanization, conflict, and connective technologies. The community is connected in unprecedented ways, but despite this fact there remains a lack of consistent and coherent communication among responders, within health systems and across the public domain.
In light of this persistent problem, KYNE and News Deeply, supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, convened a meeting on Effective Public Health Communication in an Interconnected World: Enhancing Resilience to Health Crises, held at the Bellagio Center in Bellagio, Italy, in October 2015. At the convening, 18 experts in communication, public health, and emergency response came together to detail areas of alignment and gaps.
This report seeks to distill those lessons learned and contribute to the research base on public health communication in times of crisis, by detailing key takeaways from the convening. News Deeply also conducted interviews with participants, as well as external reviews with community organizations and leaders, to inform the body of the report. In addition, it includes synthesized case studies from three participants across different regional contexts: the 2013–15 Ebola crisis in West Africa, the SARS epidemic of 2003 in Singapore, and the 2015 Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in New York City.
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