Infectious disease, public health, and politics: United States response to Ebola and Zika

Expert voices in the news reporting of the coronavirus pandemic: A study of UK television news bulletins and their audiences

The study examines the role of experts in UK television news at the start of the coronavirus pandemic by analysing both how they were used in coverage and perceived by news audiences. Our systematic content analysis of sources (N = 2300) used in the UK's flagship evening news bulletins found a reliance on political sources, principally from the government's perspective. We also discovered health and scientific experts received limited coverage and were only occasionally used to scrutinise public health policy. Yet, our six-week online diary study with 175 participants identified a strong preference for expert views about how the pandemic was being handled. It showed audiences favoured a range of expert sources in routine reporting - balancing government appointed and independent experts - to provide evidence-based scrutiny of the executive's decision-making. Overall, our findings contribute to a greater understanding of audience expectations, opinions, and experiences with broadcast news during a major public health crisis.

How do you solve a problem like Maria? The politics of disaster response in Puerto Rico, Florida and Texas

COVID-19 is not the first, nor the last, public health challenge the US political system has faced. Understanding drivers of governmental responses to public health emergencies is important for policy decision-making, planning, health and social outcomes, and advocacy. We use federal political disaster-aid debates to examine political factors related to variations in outcomes for Puerto Rico, Texas, and Florida after the 2017 hurricane season. Despite the comparable need and unprecedented mortality, Puerto Rico received delayed and substantially less aid. We find bipartisan participation in floor debates over aid to Texas and Florida, but primarily Democrat participation for Puerto Rican aid. Yet, deliberation and participation in the debates were strongly influenced by whether a state or district was at risk of natural disasters. Nearly one-third of all states did not participate in any aid debate. States' local disaster risk levels and political parties' attachments to different racial and ethnic groups may help explain Congressional public health disaster response failures. These lessons are of increasing importance in the face of growing collective action problems around the climate crisis and subsequent emergent threats from natural disasters.

Scientists, presidents, and pandemics-comparing the science-politics nexus during the Zika virus and COVID-19 outbreaks

Objective

We investigate how beliefs about scientists and presidents affect views about two pandemics, Zika virus (2016) and COVID-19 (2020).

Methods

Three New Hampshire surveys in 2016 and 2020 provide data to test how beliefs about scientists' practices and presidential approval relate to pandemic views.

Results

Support for presidents consistently predicts perceptions of scientists' integrity and trust in science agencies for information, but the directionality changes from 2016 to 2020-increased trust among Obama-supporters; decreased trust among Trump-supporters. Respondents who believe scientists lack objectivity are also less likely to trust science agencies during both Zika and COVID-19 and are less apt to be confident in the government's response in 2016. Assessments of pandemic responses become increasingly political during 2020; most notably, support for President Trump strongly predicts confidence in the government's efforts.

Conclusion

Results highlight how beliefs about scientists' practices and presidents are central to the science-politics nexus during pandemics.

Identifying the determinants of COVID-19 preventative behaviors and vaccine intentions among South Carolina residents

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has presented a global pandemic in 2020 and 2021, and has therefore spurred a flurry of research, whether related directly to the disease and its treatment or regarding its spread, containment, and effect on everyday lives. In particular, two pressing streams of research have investigated antecedents to COVID-19 preventative behaviors and vaccination intentions. This nascent research has led to many interesting and practically important findings, however, there remains many segmented, compartmentalized studies that address topics that, while certainly generative and meaningful, may not provide a full lens to possible antecedents. The current study takes an interdisciplinary approach that investigates commonly studied variables from biology and public health, political science, and psychology as they relate to COVID-19 preventative behaviors and vaccine intentions in a stratified sample of South Carolina residents (N = 1695). Results from correlations and multiple regression substantiated the findings of many previous studies, however, it was found that, when controlling for shared variance among predictors via relative weights analysis, COVID-19 knowledge, trust in science, age, and Trump approval were the strongest predictors of preventative behaviors. Alternatively, trust in science, gender, age, and conservatism were the strongest predictors of vaccine intentions. Understanding the variables that contribute to the practice of preventative behaviors and vaccine intentions can be used by public health officials to better target and tailor their educational campaign in the community.

Medical populism and the politics of dengue epidemics in the Global South

With millions of cases and thousands of deaths every year in Asia and Latin America, dengue fever continues to be of global public health significance. This article uses the concept of 'medical populism' to analyse the political construction of the 2019 dengue epidemics in Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Honduras. Through this framework, we examine the narratives of these outbreaks by reconstructing how political actors simplified the discourse, spectacularised the crises, offered multiple knowledge claims, and forged divisions between the people and 'dangerous others'. Taken together, our case studies, obtained through government, journalistic, and scholarly sources, illuminate the role of medical populists (who are almost always politicians) in defining and responding to public health emergencies, underscoring the performative dimension of disease outbreaks. By detracting attention from less spectacular but more substantive policies and programs, these 'performances' of health crises perpetuate health inequities, especially in fragile democracies like the aforementioned Global South countries. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of medical populism to public health, health communications, and the inevitable recurrence of epidemics.

Is the press properly presenting the epidemiological data on COVID-19? An analysis of newspapers from 25 countries

We conducted a cross-sectional study to assess how the top 3 highest circulation newspapers from 25 countries are comparing and presenting COVID-19 epidemiological data to their readers. Of 75 newspapers evaluated, 51(68%) presented at their websites at least one comparison of cases and/or deaths between regions of their country and/or between countries. Quality assessment of the comparisons showed that only a minority of newspapers adjusted the data for population size in case comparisons between regions (37.2%) and between countries (25.6%), and the same was true for death comparisons between regions (27.3%) and between countries (27%). Of those making comparisons, only 13.7% explained the difference in the interpretation of cases and deaths. Of 17 that presented a logarithmic curve, only 29.4% explained its meaning. Although the press plays a key role in conveying correct medical information to the general public, we identified inconsistencies in the reporting of COVID-19 epidemiological data.

Conspiracy theories as barriers to controlling the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S

RATIONALE

The COVID-19 pandemic poses extraordinary challenges to public health.

OBJECTIVE

Because the novel coronavirus is highly contagious, the widespread use of preventive measures such as masking, physical distancing, and eventually vaccination is needed to bring it under control. We hypothesized that accepting conspiracy theories that were circulating in mainstream and social media early in the COVID-19 pandemic in the US would be negatively related to the uptake of preventive behaviors and also of vaccination when a vaccine becomes available.

METHOD

A national probability survey of US adults (N = 1050) was conducted in the latter half of March 2020 and a follow-up with 840 of the same individuals in July 2020. The surveys assessed adoption of preventive measures recommended by public health authorities, vaccination intentions, conspiracy beliefs, perceptions of threat, belief about the safety of vaccines, political ideology, and media exposure patterns.

RESULTS

Belief in three COVID-19-related conspiracy theories was highly stable across the two periods and inversely related to the (a) perceived threat of the pandemic, (b) taking of preventive actions, including wearing a face mask, (c) perceived safety of vaccination, and (d) intention to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Conspiracy beliefs in March predicted subsequent mask-wearing and vaccination intentions in July even after controlling for action taken and intentions in March. Although adopting preventive behaviors was predicted by political ideology and conservative media reliance, vaccination intentions were less related to political ideology. Mainstream television news use predicted adopting both preventive actions and vaccination.

CONCLUSIONS

Because belief in COVID-related conspiracy theories predicts resistance to both preventive behaviors and future vaccination for the virus, it will be critical to confront both conspiracy theories and vaccination misinformation to prevent further spread of the virus in the US. Reducing those barriers will require continued messaging by public health authorities on mainstream media and in particular on politically conservative outlets that have supported COVID-related conspiracy theories.