OC 2

1. OC 2 Operationalizing the Outbreak Communications Guidelines

2. The Outbreak Communications Guidelines • Adopted in Sept 2004 and issued in early 2005 • After a long consultative process • First time WHO had provided formal advice on outbreak communications to member states

3. The Outbreak Communications Guidelines • Five key principles • Trust • Transparency • First announcement • Listening • Planning

4. The Outbreak Communications Guidelines Trust is the public perception in you: • Motives • Honesty • Competence

5. The Outbreak Communications Guidelines • First Announcement • Trust will be based on the announcement’s timing, candor, and completeness • Caution: Initial information can be incomplete or wrong • Key: Overcome the natural tendency to want to withhold if you don’t have all the facts, or if it may put you in a bad light • Follow-up with regular briefings

6. The Outbreak Communications Guidelines • Transparency • Transparency should be the rule • Reasons for not being transparent should be clearly articulated and option explored • Even if full transparency is not possible at the moment, detailed records should be kept for post-crisis accountability

7. The Outbreak Communications Guidelines • What should be said: • Don’t over-reassure • Acknowledge uncertainty • Share dilemmas (PI’s/AI’s “unknowns”) • Don’t over-plan for panic • Tolerate early over-reactions • Don’t lie or tell half-truths -- Peter Sandman “Recommendations for Crisis Communications”

8. The Outbreak Communications Guidelines • Listening (Comms surveillance) • The one-way risk communication model has now been replaced by a dialogue. • Trust cannot be maintained, if we don’t know what the public is hearing, thinking and feeling, and responding to their concerns.

9. The Outbreak Communications Guidelines • WHO’s “Listening” for Pandemic Influenza • Started in March 2006 • Expanded to Spanish after July 2006 • First daily basis, then twice weekly, now weekly • Contingent on the amount of attention the world was paying to the issue

10. The Outbreak Communications Guidelines • What did we learn by listening? • Most journalists didn’t understand • Blogs were myriad but who read them> • If we worked hard enough on getting out simple, clear messages, we could correct the misconceptions • Clear pattern of surge in interest/media coverage with each “new" event • Panic, over-reaction, then return to the middle-ground

11. The Outbreak Communications Guidelines • Added benefits of the listening exercise: • First efforts to build a network to and through whom we could distribute common messages • Other organizations/spokespeople/ communicators could adopt identical messages

12. The Outbreak Communications Guidelines • Planning • Before the crisis, designated outbreak team leaders (likely a “technical” person) need the endorsement from senior management and political leaders on: • The goal of trust • First announcements • Necessity of transparency • Who will be the spokesperson

13. Thank you Gregory Härtl Communications Team, Health Security and the Environment World Health Organizations, Geneva Tel. direct: +41 22 791 4458 E-mail: hartlg@who.int