(Dis)harmony in times of crisis? An analysis of COVID-related strategic communication by Swiss public health institutions

OBJECTIVES

This study aims to assess COVID-related communication by Swiss public health institutions (PHI) as well as the challenges they faced in implementing their communication strategies.

STUDY DESIGN

This study uses a two-part mixed methods design, combining automated content analysis of press releases by PHI and semi-structured interviews with PHI communication experts.

METHODS

The automated content analysis uses natural language processing techniques to measure semantic themes and linguistic properties of 1882 press releases from national and regional PHI during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The semi-structured interviews with 25 communication experts from key PHI explore the challenges faced in implementing their communication strategies.

RESULTS

The content analysis reveals key themes in press releases, including non-pharmaceutical interventions, quarantine, testing, contact tracing, hospital situations, and the pandemic's impact on the economy. The linguistic measures indicated a decrease in complexity and readability over time, with no significant differences between national and regional PHI. Interviews revealed challenges arising from organizational structures, the multi-systemic nature of the pandemic, and from expectations of the public.

CONCLUSIONS

The study highlights the importance of agility in public health communication and the need for efficient coordination within and between PHI. Organizational structures should be adapted to allow for more agile modes of operation during crises. Policymakers should clarify roles and responsibilities of different actors in public health frameworks to ensure streamlined communication. Understanding the communication efforts and challenges faced by PHI during the pandemic helps preparing for future health crises and improve public health communication practices.

Rapid, accurate publication and dissemination of clinical trial results: benefits and challenges

Large-scale clinical trials are essential in cardiology and require rapid, accurate publication, and dissemination. Whereas conference presentations, press releases, and social media disseminate information quickly and often receive considerable coverage by mainstream and healthcare media, they lack detail, may emphasize selected data, and can be open to misinterpretation. Preprint servers speed access to research manuscripts while awaiting acceptance for publication by a journal, but these articles are not formally peer-reviewed and sometimes overstate the findings. Publication of trial results in a major journal is very demanding but the use of existing checklists can help accelerate the process. In case of rejection, procedures such as easing formatting requirements and possibly carrying over peer-review to other journals could speed resubmission. Secondary publications can help maximize benefits from clinical trials; publications of secondary endpoints and subgroup analyses further define treatment effects and the patient populations most likely to benefit. These rely on data access, and although data sharing is becoming more common, many challenges remain. Beyond publication in medical journals, there is a need for wider knowledge dissemination to maximize impact on clinical practice. This might be facilitated through plain language summary publications. Social media, websites, mainstream news outlets, and other publications, although not peer-reviewed, are important sources of medical information for both the public and for clinicians. This underscores the importance of ensuring that the information is understandable, accessible, balanced, and trustworthy. This report is based on discussions held on December 2021, at the 18th Global Cardiovascular Clinical Trialists meeting, involving a panel of editors of some of the top medical journals, as well as members of the lay press, industry, and clinical trialists.