2022
8 Things U.S. Pandemic Communicators Still Get Wrong
(Note: This link launches an MP3 audio file (110MB, 1 hr. 20 min.) on this site.)Presentation via Zoom to the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, January 11, 2022
This 80-minute presentation addresses eight COVID risk communication mistakes that I believe are undermining public trust in public health: overconfidence and failure to proclaim uncertainty; failure to do anticipatory guidance; fake consensus; prioritizing health over all other goods; prioritizing health over truth; failure to own your mistakes; failure to address misinformation credibly and empathetically; and politicization.
To listen to specific segments:
- 1. Overconfidence and failure to proclaim uncertainty (11:22)
- 2. Failure to do anticipatory guidance (18:29)
- 3. Fake consensus (25:26)
- 4. Prioritizing health over all other goods (33:13)
- 5. Prioritizing health over truth (42:55)
- 6. Failure to own your mistakes (53:40)
- 7. Failure to address misinformation credibly and empathetically (59:13)
- 8. Politicization (1:14:28)
The presentation got its start as a November 15, 2021 Teams presentation to the Minnesota Department of Health. That was revised into a December 10, 2021 commentary for the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), available both on the CIDRAP website and on this website . I revised it some more for the CSTE presentation. An additional hour of discussion was not taped.
This is an audio MP3 file, 110MB, 1 hr. 20 min., located on this site.
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2021
COMMENTARY: 8 things US pandemic communicators still get wrong
Posted on the website of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, December 10, 2021
On November 15, I gave a Zoom presentation to the Minnesota Department of Health on COVID risk communication mistakes that I believe are undermining trust in U.S. public health agencies. With the department’s permission, I revised the presentation into a “commentary” article for CIDRAP. The article covers eight mistakes: (1) Overconfidence and failure to proclaim uncertainty; (2) Failure to do anticipatory guidance; (3) Fake consensus; (4) Prioritizing health over other values; (5) Prioritizing health over truth; (6) Failure to own your mistakes; (7) Failure to address misinformation credibly and empathetically; and (8) Politicization. These are all points about public health risk communication that I have made before – some of them for decades – but seldom for audiences as big as CIDRAP’s. The link above is to CIDRAP’s PDF on this site; CIDRAP’s website post is also available at the CIDRAP site.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, 404 kB, located this site.
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Risk = Hazard + Outrage: Three Paradigms of (Wildfire) Risk Communication
Webinar presented via Zoom, hosted by the European Forest Institute, November 15, 2021
In July 2021, the European Forest Institute started putting together a risk communication course, to be offered in November for wildfire management doctoral students throughout Europe (and a few from elsewhere). I agreed to give the November 15 keynote (via Zoom). At EFI’s request, I kept the keynote generic. Applying my principles to wildfire risk communication challenges would be the students’ task, I was told, not mine. So only the last minute or two of my 45-minute presentation has anything to do with wildfires, plus the 25-minute Q&A that followed.
The presentation itself focuses on the hazard-versus-outrage distinction and the three risk communication paradigms that follow from that distinction – plus a fourth paradigm I don’t always talk about, public consultation when both hazard and outrage are intermediate. I didn’t break any new ground here, but this is a pretty good, pretty short introduction to the basics of my approach. And I think the 25-minute Q&A is excellent.
Link launches an on-site audio file (98 MB, 1 hr. 11 min.)
Link opens the webinar slide set on this site (2.6 MB, 21 slides)The audio file and slide set are located on this site.
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Since the CDC’s mid-May guidance on wearing masks, we’re no longer all in this together
Posted on the STAT News website, July 16, 2021
Shortly after CDC issued its bombshell mid-May announcement that vaccinated people could safely take off their masks even indoors, Maggie Fox of CNN asked me if I wanted to write an op-ed on the resulting controversy. I did, and Maggie sent it to CNN’s opinion editors, but they didn’t take it. More than a month later, Faye Flam of Bloomberg News asked me if I wanted to write an op-ed on the same topic, updated to account for the Delta variant and other developments. I did, but what I wrote turned out too similar to a piece Faye herself was writing, so with my permission she sent it to STAT instead. STAT suggested revisions that improved it significantly, then published it. Through its three incarnations, the article’s main thesis didn’t change: Thanks to COVID-19 vaccines, we’re no longer all in this together. But by mid-July I had to add that “thanks” to Delta, we’re a bit more in this together again than we were in May.
This file is located off this site.
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Three Paradigms of Risk Communication – and a critique of COVID-19 Crisis Communication
In April 2021, the University of Liverpool Institute for Risk and Uncertainty asked me to give a presentation in its monthly webinar series. We agreed I would divide my time between my “signature risk communication formula” and my criticisms of the way COVID-19 has been communicated. And on July 7 that’s what I did. The first third of this 94-minute webinar is introductory, my “Risk = Hazard + Outrage” formula and the three risk communication paradigms I derive from the formula. The second third is my critique of COVID-19 crisis communication, mostly in the U.S. The final third is Q&A and discussion, much of it focusing on COVID-19 risk communication dilemmas in the U.K.
My hosts promptly posted the webinar on YouTube, as they always do. That link is below. Also below is an audio-only recording of the webinar and my slide set, so you’re free to follow along on your own if you prefer.
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Pesticide Outrage Management – Parts 1 and 2
Webinar presented via Zoom to the Region One Pesticide Inspector Regional Training (PIRT) program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, February 23, 2021
I came out of retirement in January 2020 to try to help with the COVID pandemic. I wasn’t interested in any other work. But in early 2021, I was asked to do a two-hour Zoom training seminar for pesticide managers on how to cope with pesticide safety controversies. I thought it would be a nice change of pace from the pandemic, so I said yes.
Part 1, 56 minutes long, is devoted mostly to the basics of risk communication: the distinction between hazard and outrage and the three paradigms of risk communication resulting from that distinction. Toward the end I focus on the paradigm most relevant to pesticide controversies, outrage management – beginning with some thoughts on how to stay empathetic in high-stress situations. Part 2 (65 minutes) includes more on outrage management and some Q&A on pesticide outrage management in particular.
The training was sponsored by the Region One Pesticide Inspector Regional Training (PIRT) program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It was organized and hosted by the Pesticide Management Program of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
Link to the off-site Zoom Part 1 file on Vimeo (57 min.)
Link to the off-site Zoom Part 2 file on Vimeo (65 min.)
Link is to an on-site file with the PowerPoint slides for both parts
The Zoom files are located off this site.
The audio file and the PowerPoint slides are located on this site.This article is categorized as:
Vaccine Risk Communications with Dr. Peter Sandman and Richard Levick of LEVICK
(Note: This link launches an MP3 audio file on this site.)Interview with Peter M. Sandman by Richard Levick, January 13, 2021 (part of Richard Levick’s “In House Warrior” podcast series, released January 20, 2021)
Richard Levick runs a crisis communication consulting firm, and churns out an incredible number of podcasts, including the daily “In House Warrior” series for Corporate Counsel Business Journal. Our 38-minute conversation covered some generic topics, starting with my three paradigms of risk communication and ending with my views on whether corporations should take stands on controversies. In the middle we focused on vaccine communication: what to do about vaccination hesitation; bandwagoning versus finger-wagging; what company COVID-19 vaccination policies should be; the politicization of masks and vaccines; key messages in this dark pandemic winter; etc.
This is an audio MP3 file, 34.5MB, 37:46 min., located on this site.
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2020
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COVID-19 from Frozen Fish: Fascinoma or Serious Risk?
Posted on this site in English, and on Weibo and WeChat in Mandarin, October 22, 2020
This is the first article I’ve ever written to be published first in China (in Mandarin). Andre Shen, CEO of the Chinese public relations consultancy Bridge Consulting, has been translating some of my COVID-19 risk communication articles into Mandarin and posting them on Chinese social media platforms Weibo and WeChat. On October 20, he sent me an email asking me to write a short article on an emerging Chinese COVID-19 issue: the possibility that imported frozen fish might be a SARS-CoV-2 transmission source. The risk communication questions here are generic: Should authorities go public about a small risk that’s likely to lead to a big overreaction? And if they do go public, how can they minimize the overreaction? Andre translated the article and posted it. I’m posting it on this website in English.
This file is located on this site in English.
This file is located off this site in Mandarin.This article is categorized as:
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COMMENTARY: Public health’s share of the blame: US COVID-19 risk communication failures
Posted on the website of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, August 24, 2020
On August 4, I posted a column on this website entitled “Public Health’s Single Biggest COVID-19 Risk Communication Failure.” It told the story of how public health professionals drastically underreacted to COVID-19 at first and left us unprepared, then overreacted and sent us into lockdown, and then justified the lockdown by switching from a “flatten the curve” narrative to a “prevent infections at all costs” narrative instead of teaching us to balance priorities and “dance” with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. After digesting some comments from public health officials and others, I produced this new version for CIDRAP – which gets orders of magnitude more readers than my website. It’s shorter than the original and has a lot of new content, though it makes the same main points. The link above is to CIDRAP’s PDF on this site; CIDRAP’s website post is also available at their site.
This PDF file, 155kB, is located on this site.
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Peter Sandman: How Your Ability To Process Risk Can Save Your Life
Interview with Chris Martenson of Peak Prosperity, podcast posted July 7, 2020
Chris Martenson’s “Peak Prosperity” YouTube channel currently claims 368,000 subscribers. Chris is best known for his “Crash Course” on how pretty much everything is in rapid decline. In 2020, not surprisingly, he has posted dozens of videos on COVID-19. One of these, posted in March, was devoted entirely to my 2005 article on the adjustment reaction concept. Entitled “Coronavirus: How To Inform Your Friends & Family Without Creating Pushback,” it got 330,000 views and 4,428 comments in three months – way out of my league.
So when Chris said he wanted to interview me via Zoom for an hour-long podcast, I said yes. We did it on June 29. Chris wanted to talk (again!) about adjustment reactions. I wanted to talk (again) about the basics of risk communication. We both wanted to talk about the ways the U.S. is mismanaging the COVID-19 pandemic. So we did all three. Our COVID-19 discussion focused mostly on a risk communication analysis, but we inevitably veered into risk management and epidemiology as well.
Link off-site to Peak Prosperity site with the video of this interview.
Link off-site to the same Peak Prosperity site with a complete rough transcript.The video interview and transcript are located off this site.
The audio verison is located on this site.This article is categorized as:
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Why So Much COVID-19 Crisis Communication Has Failed: An Expert Explains
Email responses by Peter M. Sandman to questions posed by Eric Lebowitz of Critical Mention, posted verbatim as a Critical Mention “eBook,” July 1, 2020
Jody Lanard and I posted an article on “Effective COVID-19 Crisis Communication” on May 6, 2020. On May 12, Eric Lebowitz of Critical Mention emailed me three follow-up questions, focusing on why the crisis communication principles Jody and I had emphasized were so seldom followed. The answers I sent him on June 5 covered some familiar ground with new COVID-19 examples, including the case for admitting mistakes instead of trying to hide them. But I also included information on two topics I hadn’t written about in so much detail previously: arguments I used to use when trying to convince my consulting clients to avoid over-reassurance and overconfidence; and why traditional public relations paradigms make PR people bad crisis communicators unless they have reoriented their approach. Critical Mention reformatted my answers as a short “eBook” for their clients, with permission to post the eBook on this website as well.
This PDF file, 455kB, is located on this site.
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Effective COVID-19 Crisis Communication
Posted on the website of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, May 6, 2020
In late April 2020, some three months into the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy decided to produce a series of reports under the collective title “COVID-19: The CIDRAP Viewpoint.” CIDRAP head Michael Osterholm asked Jody and me to write the second entry in the series, on COVID-19 crisis communication. We focused on six crisis communication basics: Don’t over-reassure; proclaim uncertainty; validate emotions; give people things to do; admit and apologize for errors; and share dilemmas. Throughout the report, we emphasized the most glaring problem of COVID-19 communication in the U.S. so far – nurturing the dangerous myth that COVID-19 will be a one-peak pandemic that's about halfway over already. We also stressed that crisis communication is a field of study and practice and it’s past time for officials and experts to learn the basics.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, 3.8MB, located on this site.
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Note:In 2015, I stopped writing articles for other publications, largely because publishers so often objected to simultaneous publication on this website. I decided to do all my writing exclusively for the website, while also providing content to journalists writing for other publications via emails and phone interviews. So the above is my first entry in “Web-Available Articles by Peter M. Sandman” since 2015. Mike Osterholm is an old friend, and CIDRAP agreed to simultaneous publication.
2019–2016
(There were no articles written for the web during 2016 through 2019.)
2015
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Radical Candor: Making “Clean Coal” More than an Oxymoron
Public Utilities Fortnightly, March 2015, pp. 16–23
The editor of Public Utilities Fortnightly invited me to write an article – no pay, but any utilities-related topic I wanted, at any length I wanted, with the final edit up to me, and with the okay to post the final product on my website as soon as it came out. I decided to take the opportunity to write about “clean coal” communication – focusing on how the coal industry has oversold the prospects of carbon capture and storage (CCS), thereby turning what might (or might not) be an important piece of the answer to global climate change into an oxymoron and a laugh line. I didn’t find any smoking guns, just garden-variety hype. But for a variety of reasons, hype from the coal industry backfires much more badly than hype from (for example) the solar or wind power industries. The last half of the article outlines a set of CCS messages embodying a strategy of “radical candor.” I argue that it will take something approaching radical candor for the coal industry to earn a second look from the key audience: “attentives” who are skeptical about CCS and anything to do with coal, but not unalterably hostile.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, 8.8 kB, located on this site.
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2014
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COMMENTARY: When the Next Shoe Drops – Ebola Crisis Communication Lessons from October
Posted on the website of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, December 9, 2014
For more than a month the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) and its director, Mike Osterholm, urged me to write a CIDRAP commentary on crisis communication lessons from the U.S. bout with Ebola in October 2014. I hesitated – partly because it wasn’t much of a crisis, partly because it was over and I was tired of writing about it, and partly because I doubted CIDRAP’s principal audience of public health professionals wanted to hear my complaints about how they handled it (especially their uncivil response to the quarantine controversy). But in early December I decided to go ahead, jointly with my wife and colleague Jody Lanard. The resulting article focuses on four main crisis communication errors: over-reassurance; over-confidence and even absolutism instead of acknowledging uncertainties about Ebola science; misdiagnosing the public as panicking; and ridiculing the public’s Ebola fears instead of accepting and guiding them.
This file is located off this site.
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2013
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The San Onofre Controversy: What Should Southern California Edison Do?
Guest column (part one), “energybiz” website, May 30, 2013
The San Onofre Controversy: What Should We Criticize … and What Should We Praise?
Guest column (part two), “energybiz” website, June 2, 2013
On May 16, 2013, Ken Silverstein interviewed me by telephone about a controversy regarding the San Onofre nuclear power plant. Had the plant’s owner, Southern California Edison, been warned in advance about a possible steam generator problem? If so, should the company have redesigned the system, and should it have told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission? And later, when the problem materialized, led to radiation leaks, and forced the plant to shut down, did it lie about whether it had been warned? I later followed up with an email, focusing on the case against keeping secrets. Both Ken’s May 17 Forbes story and my email are online.
On May 29, Ken sent me a link to a follow-up story he had posted on the “energybiz” website, and asked for further comment. When he read the email I sent in return, he requested my okay to post it on “energybiz” as a two-part guest column. Part one considers what sort of risk communication Southern California Edison should be doing to address the issue, and whether it is a “crisis” or merely a “controversy.” Part two argues that while the company may deserve criticism for how it handled the steam generator warning, we shouldn’t criticize any company merely for having “warnings in its files about possible problems it decided not to fix.” A reader's comment on Part two provoked me to add a comment of my own, addressing the “near miss paradox”: whether near misses should be seen as evidence of safety or of danger.
The “energybiz” and Forbes articles are located off this site.
The May 16 email is located on this site.These articles are categorized as:
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Atomic Show #205 – Peter Sandman teaches nuclear communicators (Note: Link goes off-site to a page with this 102-min. audio)
Podcast for the “Atomic Insights” website, May 31, 2013 (with Rod Adams, Margaret Harding, Meredith Angwin, and Suzy Hobbs-Baker)
Rod Adams runs a website called “Atomic Insights” that promotes nuclear power. In early May 2013 he discovered my approach to outrage management, and put posts on his own website and on an American Nuclear Society website urging nuclear power proponents to learn outrage management. The responses to his two posts led Rod to invite me to do this podcast.
The podcast itself runs 1 hour and 42 minutes. Most of it is a basic introduction to risk communication and then to outrage management: the hazard-versus-outrage distinction, the components of outrage, the three paradigms of risk communication, the key strategies of outrage management, etc. But I did try to focus especially on what the nuclear power industry and its supporters get wrong – for example, imagining that their core communication mistake is failing to sell their strengths effectively, whereas I believe it is failing to acknowledge their problems candidly. There are recommendations for nuclear communication throughout the podcast, and a Q&A at the end with Rod and fellow proponents Margaret Harding, Meredith Angwin, and Suzy Hobbs-Baker. The plan is to follow up with a second podcast, a more narrowly focused roundtable discussion among the five of us on nuclear power outrage management.
Link off-site to a page with this 102-min. audio.
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Presented via telephone at a conference on “Freedom in Biological Research: How to Consider Accidental or Intentional Risks for Populations,” Fondation Mérieux and Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, Veyrier-du-lac, France, February 8, 2013
The controversy over whether scientists should be allowed to bioengineer potentially pandemic bird flu viruses had pretty much died down by the time I was asked to speak at a February 2013 conference on the issue in France. Since I had criticized the controversy’s consistently miserable risk communication, I was delighted that at least one post mortem conference wanted a risk communication perspective. But I had prior commitments and couldn’t go. When the organizers invited me to present by telephone instead, I jumped at the chance. My speech notes are more extensive than I had time for in the actual presentation. On the other hand, the MP3 recording of the actual presentation includes about 25 minutes of Q&A. My presentation was mostly borrowed from my previous articles and Guestbook entries on the controversy, all of which are listed and linked at the end of the notes.
These files are located on this site.
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2012
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Talking to the Public about H5N1 Biotech Research (original longer version)
Submitted to Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, March 18, 2012
Talking to the Public about H5N1 Biotech Research (accepted shorter version)
Published in Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, April 15, 2012
The H5N1 (“bird flu”) virus is incredibly deadly to humans, but almost never transmits from human to human – at least until late 2011, when two teams of scientists bioengineered H5N1 to make it transmissible in mammals. Now a battle rages over whether the two papers detailing this work should be published, and whether the work itself should continue – and whether the concerns of the general public should be considered in making these decisions. When I was quoted in Nature urging proponents to dialogue with critics rather than merely trying to “educate” them, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News asked me to write a brief opinion piece expanding on my view. Both the short version accepted for publication and a somewhat longer version (with a little more background on the controversy) I submitted at the same time are posted on this site.
These files are located on this site.
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Flu Vaccination of Healthcare Workers: Two Risk Communication Issues
Comments on draft recommendations of the Healthcare Personnel Influenza Vaccination Subgroup, National Vaccine Program Office, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, submitted January 14, 2012
The public health establishment in the U.S. is pushing hard for mandatory flu vaccination of healthcare workers (HCWs), chiefly on the grounds that vaccinated HCWs are less likely to give patients the flu. A committee of the National Vaccine Program Office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued draft recommendations that included mandatory vaccination if organizations fail to vaccinate at least 90% of HCWs voluntarily. Comments on the draft were solicited, so on January 14, 2012 my wife and colleague Jody Lanard and I submitted some. We focused on two risk communication issues: the dangers of overstating flu vaccination benefits, and the dangers of requiring reluctant HCWs to get vaccinated.
This file is located on this site.
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2011
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Three Paradigms of Radiological Risk Communication: Alerting, Reassuring, Guiding
Presented to the National Public Health Information Coalition, Miami Beach FL, October 21, 2009
Although this six-hour seminar was entitled “Three Paradigms of Radiological Risk Communication,” NPHIC asked me to go easy on the “radiological” part and give participants a broad introduction to my approach to risk communication, mentioning radiation issues from time to time. So that’s what I did.
Fair warning: These are not professional videos. NPHIC member Joe Rebele put a camera in the back of the room and let it run. You won’t lose much listening to the MP3 audio files on this site instead.
- Part 1 (90-min.)
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Part One is a introduction to the hazard-versus-outrage distinction and the three paradigms of risk communication.
- Part Two (155 min)
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Part Two discusses the seesaw and other risk communication games (thus completing the introductory segment), then spends a little over an hour each on some key strategies of precaution advocacy and outrage management.
- Part Three (72-min.)
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Part Three is a rundown on some key crisis communication strategies.
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Trust the Public with More of the Truth: What I Learned in 40 Years of Risk Communication
Written speech
Audio (they’re pretty different)
(Note: This link launches an MP3 file (62MB; 1 hr 6 min.) on this site.)
Link off-site to the video
(Note: This link goes to a page off-site with a link to this video file.)The National Public Health Information Coalition is an organization of federal, state, and local health department communicators. NPHIC asked me to give its 2009 “Berreth Lecture” at its annual conference in Miami Beach – and specified that the presentation should be about myself and my career, not the substance of risk communication. But as I walked the group through my 40 years in risk communication, a substantive theme emerged: that public health communicators are at least as untrustworthy as corporate communicators, that nobody has the courage to trust the public with those parts of the truth that conflict with the message, and that public health agencies need to learn how to cope better with mistrust and outrage. I illustrated my thesis with a lot of flu and other infectious diseases examples. I had written the speech out in advance – something I almost never do – but I departed from my text more than a little, so both versions are here.
The written speech file is located on this site.
The audio file is located on this site.
The video file is located off this site. -
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2010
2009
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Food Safety Risk Communications
(Note: This link launches an MP3 audio file from this site.)Presented at the Maple Leaf Food Safety Symposium, Mississauga Canada, October 23, 2009
In August 2008, Listeria contamination in Maple Leaf packaged deli meats killed 21 elderly consumers, one of the largest food poisoning disasters in Canadian history. As one small part of its recovery efforts, Maple Leaf Foods sponsored a food safety symposium in October 2009, bringing together producers, retailers, and regulators to talk about lessons learned and ways to protect against Listeria. My presentation on “Food Safety Risk Communication” was inserted as respite from the technical material in most of the other speeches. I did my usual introduction to hazard versus outrage and the kinds of risk communication, and then offered a few food-specific examples (until I ran out of time). Audience comments and questions weren’t recorded; that’s what the occasional moments of dead air are.
This is an audio MP3 file, 19.2MB, 55 min., located on this site.
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Fundamentals of risk communication: How to talk to patients and the public about pandemic H1N1
Presented to the European Respiratory Society international conference, Vienna, Austria, September 14, 2009
The European Respiratory Society invited me give a 20-minute presentation on pandemic communication at its annual conference, as part of a panel on various aspects of pandemic H1N1. I pleaded for an extra hour right afterwards to go into more detail for those who wanted it. Some 20,000 respiratory disease doctors attended the conference; roughly 2,000 of them were at the panel; about 200 followed me to a smaller room for my extra hour (which I did jointly with my wife and colleague Jody Lanard, an M.D.). Only the panel presentation is posted on the ERS website. It’s mostly an introduction to the basics of risk communication (hazard versus outrage; precaution advocacy versus outrage management versus crisis communication), with some quick comments on the implications for pandemic communication. The meat was in the hour that followed, which unfortunately wasn’t recorded.
This talk is categorized as:
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Distributed by Project Syndicate, July 27, 2009
Project Syndicate is a nonprofit organization that distributes op-ed commentaries on currently hot topics to newspapers around the world, free of charge. They asked me to do one on how public health officials ought to be communicating with the public about the ongoing H1N1 pandemic. The resulting piece briefly discusses nine mistakes officials should stop making: don’t feign confidence; don’t over-reassure; don’t worry about panic; don’t obsess over accusations of fear-mongering; don’t fight the adjustment reaction; don’t oversell what the government is doing; don’t oversell what the public can do; don’t ask the impossible; and don’t neglect the teachable moment.
These files are located off this site.
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Pandemics: good hygiene is not enough
Published in Nature, May 21, 2009, pp. 322–323
This is a pretty drastic abridgment and a very minimal updating of my April 29, 2009 column, “The Swine Flu Crisis: The Government Is Preparing for the Worst While Hoping for the Best – It Needs to Tell the Public to Do the Same Thing!“ But a Nature commentary can be a lot more influential than a website column, so I was happy to seize the opportunity. The focus, of course, is the same: that the authorities (for example the CDC in the U.S.) are being candid about swine flu but are not urging people to prepare, and not giving people a visceral sense of what a serious swine flu pandemic might be like. Why? Partly because they’re (mistakenly) afraid of frightening the public, and partly because they’re (correctly) afraid of being accused of frightening the public. I argue that they should get over both fears and use the teachable moment … a position I feel even more fervently on May 21 than I did on April 29.
An Adobe Acrobat file (707-kB pdf) of the complete article is also available. (Note: The Nature links require payment. Free access to a copy is available.) A French translation of this article, originally posted on the website Zone Grippe Aviaire (which has disappeared) is now available on this site.
French translation available
En Français: Pandémie: une bonne hygiène ne suffit pas (Nature)
The files are located off this site. The French translation is on this site.
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Is America Prepared for a Pandemic?
Published in the Washington Post, April 28, 2009
The Washington Post asked me to write a 200-word piece on how I thought the U.S. government was doing on swine flu risk communication. My first draft was 600+ words. Then I revised to around 200, and sent the editor both. He used the short one. I’m posting the long one (“The Government is Preparing for the Worst While Hoping for the Best – Now It Needs to Tell the Public to Do the Same Thing!”) here too. Both emphasize my sense that the government has been preparing for the worst while hoping for the best – but hasn’t yet urged the public to do the same thing.
This file is located off this site. My original is located on this site.
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Climate Change Risk Communication Dialogue
Excerpts from the RISKANAL listserv, March 24–25, 2009 (plus some follow-up offline correspondence)
In late March of 2009, discussion on the RISKANAL (risk analysis) listserv turned to the psychology of people – including people on the listserv – who are skeptical about global climate change. I had recently dealt with this question in a column for this website on “Climate Change Risk Communication: The Problem of Psychological Denial.” So I posted a comment on the listserv referencing and summarizing the column. The resulting brief dialogue dealt with the motives not just of global warming skeptics but also of global warming supporters. And it led to a further discussion of whether strategic persuasion (on behalf of global warming or any topic) is antithetical to sincerity. I thought it was a good, thoughtful and respectful discussion – worth reprinting here (with the permission of all the participants). After the RISKANAL discussion petered out, I continued to exchange emails (also posted here) with one participant in the dialogue, Stephen L. Brown. Our focus slowly shifted from climate change risk communication to outrage and outrage management – and led to some observations on Steve’s part about outrage that I think are well worth reading, whether you’re interested in global warming or not.
To join RISKANAL, send the following email message to lyris@lyris.pnl.gov:
SUBSCRIBE RISKANAL First_Name Last_NameThis file is located on this site.
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2008
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The Precaution Adoption Process Model
Health Behavior and Health Education, 4th. ed., edited by Karen Glanz, Barbara K. Rimer, and K. Viswanath (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008), pp. 123–147.
The Precaution Adoption Process Model (PAPM) was developed mostly by Neil Weinstein, with some help from me. It is an attempt to identify the stages people must pass through on the way to adopting a new precaution: unaware, uninvolved, undecided, decided to act, acting, and maintaining action. It also tries to identify the interventions most likely to move people from one stage to the next. This 2008 book chapter summarizes the PAPM – how it differs from non-stage theories and competing stage theories of health-protective behavior; the justification for the stages specified; the advantages of stage-matched interventions; research testing the PAPM and research using it; etc. Two earlier articles applying the PAPM to a specific example, radon risk, are also on this website: “A Model of the Precaution Adoption Process: Evidence From Home Radon Testing” and “Experimental Evidence for Stages of Health Behavior Change: The Precaution Adoption Process Model Applied to Home Radon Testing.” This chapter is a better introduction: more recent, broader, and less quantitative.
This file is located on this site.
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Breaking the Fourth Wall: How Joe Biden Should Debate Sarah Palin
Posted on the Daily Kos website, September 28, 2008
I was sitting at the breakfast table with my wife and colleague Jody Lanard, pondering how Joe Biden could debate a palpably unprepared opponent without looking either nasty or patronizing. Since Biden faced a dilemma, we reasoned, perhaps the solution was the tried-and-true risk communication response of sharing the dilemma. (See for example “How Safe Is Safe Enough: Sharing the Dilemma.”) By the time we had drafted appropriate language a couple of hours later, we were pretty sure it wasn’t such a good idea. But we sent it to a friend who is also a Democratic netroots heavy (he goes by DemFromCT), and asked him to post it on the Daily Kos if he thought it might be useful (or at least provocative). He did. It attracted 600+ comments in the first three hours (and counting) – nearly all critical of our suggestion, and many with far better suggestions of their own.
This file is located off this site.
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Plan B: Turning organizations into islands of pandemic influenza preparedness
Published as a Guest Briefing in Osterholm Briefing, published biweekly by CIDRAP Business Source (University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy), September 25, 2008
CIDRAP’s Michael Osterholm publishes a biweekly Osterholm Briefing to help subscribers – mostly businesses – prepare for a possible influenza pandemic. As Deputy Editor of the Briefing’s publisher, CIDRAP Business Source, I send Mike my reactions after each Briefing. He asked me to turn my comments on his September 11 Briefing into a Guest Briefing. I agreed on condition that I could publish it on my website as well. It’s not about risk communication. It’s about Mike’s growing skepticism that most governments and companies will prepare adequately for a possible influenza pandemic, a skepticism I share. And it’s about how preparedness planning should change if you figure those around you are going to be unprepared.
This file is located on this site.
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Handling explosive emotions demands five acts of empathy
Published in ISHN (Industrial Safety & Hygiene News), May 2008, pp. 1, 24, 26
Dave Johnson, the editor of ISHN, admired my website column on “Empathy in Risk Communication.” But of course it was much too long for him to republish. So he excerpted the less complicated sections, made a few editing and formatting changes, and came up with a shorter, more accessible article.
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2007
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Understanding the Risk: What Frightens Rarely Kills
From the edited transcript of a conference on pandemic media coverage, published in Nieman Reports, vol. 61, no. 1, Spring 2007
For three days starting 30 November 2006, Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism ran a conference on how the news media cover (and should cover) the risk of an influenza pandemic. I spoke twice, a stand-alone presentation on “Risk Perception, Risk Communication, and Risk Reporting: The Role of Each in Pandemic Preparedness” and a panel presentation on “Fear of Fear and Panic Panic: Is It Okay to Scare People about Pandemics?” The two were abridged and combined into one article when Nieman Reports published an edited transcript in Spring 2007. As compiled by the Nieman Foundation, the published article focuses on two topics – the four kinds of risk communication as applied to pandemic risk and the importance of fear in pandemic preparedness. For the (nearly) unedited transcripts of the two presentations, see below.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, 54 kB, located on this site.
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Risk Perception, Risk Communication, and Risk Reporting: The Role of Each in Pandemic Preparedness
Originally presented at a conference on “Avian Flu, a Pandemic & the Role of Journalists,” Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, December 1, 2006
An abridged version ( above) of this presentation was published in the Spring 2007 issue of Nieman Reports (see the previous entry). The Nieman Foundation for Journalism also made the original transcript available to me. I edited it very lightly so it makes sense – but it’s still very much a transcript, not a polished article.
This file is located on this site.
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Understanding Human Responses [to pandemic risk]: Communication Focus
Panel discussion at a conference on “Avian Flu, a Pandemic & the Role of Journalists,” Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, December 2, 2006
I was joined in this panel discussion by three experienced risk communication practitioners, Howard Koh, Glen Nowak, and Dick Thompson. My contribution was entitled “Fear of Fear and Panic Panic: Is It Okay to Scare People about Pandemics?” An abridged version of my presentation and a tiny bit of the Q&A were published in the Spring 2007 issue of Nieman Reports (look two entries up). The Nieman Foundation for Journalism also made the original panel discussion transcript available to me, very slightly edited by them. I edited my parts a bit more thoroughly, though it’s still very much a transcript, not a polished article. I left other people’s presentations and comments alone – so blame any garbles on the transcription process, not the speakers. The conversation ranged widely over the various challenges of pandemic communication.
This file is located on this site.
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2006
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Crisis Communication Best Practices: Some Quibbles and Additions
Published in the Journal of Applied Communication Research, vol. 34, no. 3, August 2006, pp. 257–262
Since 2004 I have been working with the U.S. Government-funded National Center for Food Protection and Defense at the University of Minnesota. One of the projects I worked on was an effort to develop a set of consensus “best practices” in crisis communication. Matthew Seeger wrote up the results in an article entitled “Best Practices in Crisis Communication: An Expert Panel Process.” I got a second bite of the apple when I was asked to write one of four commentaries on Seeger’s article. My commentary, posted here with permission, focuses on some things I think the group missed or got wrong: the importance of fear and other emotions, the need to trust and respect the public, and the over-emphasis on message consistency. Seeger’s article and the other commentaries are available online from the publisher, but only if you pay. A much less detailed PowerPoint on the ten best practices is available without charge.
This title links to an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, 57 kB, located on this site. The other two links go off site.
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Recent H5N1 Outbreaks: The Evolving Challenge of Defining and Communicating Pandemic Risk
Transcript of a June 22, 2006 teleconference sponsored by Bio Economic Research Associates
As part of its pandemic preparedness consulting business, Bio Economic Research Associates (“bio-era”) conducts periodic teleconferences for clients and prospective clients. Its June 2006 session featured an illustrated presentation by Jim Newcomb of bio-era, with a detailed update on bird flu developments and pandemic risks. But bio-era managed to squeeze in three other speakers – United Nations pandemic coordinator David Nabarro, the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Billy Karesh, and me. My piece runs from page 23 to page 27. It focuses on the different “kinds” of bird flu/pandemic flu problems, but also includes my answers to questions about how companies should talk about these problems – how restaurants should talk to their customers about bird flu and how manufacturers should talk to their employees about pandemics.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, 4.7MB, located on this site.
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2005
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What Motivates Companies – Interview with Peter Sandman (Part 1)
Worst Case Scenarios, Bird Flu, and Risk Perception – Interview with Peter Sandman (Part 2)
Both published in safety AT WORK, December 2005, pp. 7–10 and January 2006, pp. 4–10
In November 2005 I did a two-hour interview in Melbourne with Kevin Jones, editor of Safety at Work, a monthly electronic magazine published out of Australia but distributed worldwide. We covered an extremely wide range of topics – from whether the mining industry is serious about safety (and why it so often sounds like it isn’t) to how to talk about worst case scenarios like a severe influenza pandemic to why I put everything I can on my website and don’t trademark anything. I imagined that Kevin would edit out the boring parts and organize the nuggets. But instead he used the whole two hours verbatim. Because it ranges all over the map, this interview transcript is hard to categorize – but Part 2 has some focused discussion of aspects of pandemic preparedness I haven’t written much about elsewhere.
These are Adobe Acrobat (pdf) files, (Part 1, 218 kB; Part 2, 387 kB), located on this site.
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Selling Safety: Business Case or Values Case
Published in The Synergist, December 2005, pp. 30–35
I have long argued that corporate environmental performance is better “sold” to stakeholders as a response to pressure than as a self-motivated commitment to the environment; I think claiming to be responsive is both truer and more credible than claiming to be responsible. In this article I make the same case about “selling” safety to employees. When management says it cares more about safety than productivity or profit, I argue, employees are likely to conclude that safety rules have more to do with company PR than company policy, and may “loyally” rather than rebelliously disobey. The article also discusses why both safety professionals and top corporate managers enjoy making a values case for safety, and resist making the business case I think they should make.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, 593 kB, located on this site.
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Risk Communications During a Terrorist Attack or Other Public Health Emergency
Published in Terrorism and Other Public Health Emergencies: A Reference Guide for the Media (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2005), Chapter 11, pp. 184–193
I have a two-page “essay” in this chapter (pp. 190–191) entitled “Public Reactions to Crisis Situations and Communication Implications,” which covers yet again material that is presented in more detail in “Beyond Panic Prevention: Addressing Emotion in Emergency Communication.” The rest of the chapter (on which I collaborated) is worth reading for its advice to journalists on how the public and the official sources are likely to cope with a terrorism crisis. . The rest of the manual, no longer available online, is mostly about biological, chemical, and radiological threats and the government agencies that try to address them. .
The title links to an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file ( 190 kB) located on this site.
The “Beyond” pdf file ( 77 kB) is located on this site.This article is categorized as:
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Presentation at “Bulls, Bears, and Birds: Preparing the Financial Industry for a Pandemic,” a September 23, 2005 New York City conference sponsored by the Center for Biosecurity of UPMC, Deutsche Bank, and Contingency Planning Exchange, Inc.
Despite the title, this brief speech focused mostly on pre-pandemic communication, and especially on the need to overcome official “fear of fear” and scare people into pandemic preparedness.
In addition to the speech transcript (which I edited a little for clarity and grammar), a video of the speech itself is available.
These files are located off this site.
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Public Reactions and Teachable Moments
Published in Homeland Protection Professional, May 2005, vol. 4, no. 4, pp.14–16
This article quickly covers some of the emotional reactions to crisis situations – ground covered in more detail in “Beyond Panic Prevention: Addressing Emotion in Emergency Communication” and “Adjustment Reactions: The Teachable Moment in Crisis Communication.” Some minor editorial changes made by the magazine’s staff have not been replicated here (only the ones I liked).
These files are located on this site, including the Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file 77 kB.
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Bird Flu: Communicating the Risk
Published in Perspectives in Health (Pan American Health Organization), vol. 10, no. 2, 2005, pp. 2–9
PAHO asked us to combine a primer on risk communication with a primer on avian influenza. The resulting article talks about the challenge of alerting the public to bird flu risks, then offers ten risk communication principles, each illustrated with bird flu examples. The PDF file also includes the cover, an editor’s note entitled “Communication: risky business,” and the contents page. (Note the confusion of “bird flu” with pandemic flu in this 2005 article – and this blurb, also written in 2005.)
(There is an online version (same text, but easier to read than a PDF file) posted on the PAHO website. The entire issue is also there.
Spanish translation available
Traducción en Español: La gripe aviar: cómo comunicar el riesgo
Both Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) files (English version, 806 kB; Spanish version, 774 kB.) are located on this site.
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Talking about “What Happened”: Post-Event Risk Communication
Published in ISHN (Industrial Safety and Hygiene News), May 2005, pp. 19–20, and June 2005, pp. 36, 38
A lot of what gets called risk communication actually deals less with future risk than with past events: “What happened?” This short two-part article offers ten pointers on talking about a recent accident, regulatory action, etc. It’s a start toward a post-event risk communication checklist.
Both Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) files are located on this site.
2004
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Crisis Communication: Guidelines for Action
Produced by the American Industrial Hygiene Association, Fairfax VA, 2004
This 166-minute video, produced by the American Industrial Hygiene Association in 2004, covers 25 crisis communication recommendations, focusing chiefly on the most difficult messaging challenges that even experienced crisis communicators may get wrong. AIHA stopped distributing the video in January 2012, so now it᾿s available for free on Vimeo (video) and on this site (audio). Unlike many of my videos, this one was professionally produced in a studio, with multiple cameras and an actual set – and it features not just me but also my wife and colleague Jody Lanard. Although some of the examples may be dated – there᾿s a lot of SARS and bird flu throughout the video – the recommendations themselves haven᾿t changed. A complete set of handouts to accompany this video is available.