How to improve the communication of public health information about COVID-19 and other crises

Written evidence submitted by SciBeh for the Scottish Government’s COVID-19 Recovery Committee 15th Meeting, 2022 (Session 6), Thursday 26 May 2022: COVID-19: communication of public health information (CVDR/S6/22/15/1)

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Hahn, U., Lagnado, D., Lewandowsky, S., & Chater, N. (2020, March 21). Crisis knowledge management: Reconfiguring the behavioural science community for rapid responding in the COVID–19 crisis. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/hsxdk

The present crisis demands an all-out response if it is to be mastered with minimal damage. This means we, as the behavioural science community, need to think about how we can adapt to best support evidence-based policy in a rapidly changing, high-stakes environment. This piece is an attempt to initiate this process. The ‘recommendations’ made are first stabs that will hopefully be critiqued, debated and improved.