Article
Truth and Trust in Public Health Communication – the Role of Transparency
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Authors
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Odette Wegwarth
- Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
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Brigitte Strahwald
- LMU München, München, Germany
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Helge Giese
- Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
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Wolfgang Gaissmaier
- Universität Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
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Ingrid Mühlhauser
- Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
| Published: | September 6, 2024 |
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Outline
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Open and transparent communication about the benefits, harms, and uncertainties surrounding the effectiveness of prevention – especially in health emergencies – is essential for building public trust [1]. However, our public health communication, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, often neglects these standards when dealing with numbers. Omissions of relevant information (e.g., actual magnitude, harms, denominator) or misrepresentations by presenting spurious precision, and neglect uncertainty are frequent problems that are commonly observed in public health communication [2].
To illustrate: An investigation [3] of more than 2,500 websites from public health communicators such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS), and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) revealed that a majority of health behavior claims (84%) failed to report any effect size for the efficacy claims made for exceling a certain preventive behavior. Instead, websites simply offered long lists of negative health outcomes (e.g., 177 distinct claims about the negative effects of obesity) without providing any proof or numbers for these claims. Only 1% of all claims made on these websites complied partially with the guidelines on evidence-based health communication by providing the magnitude of a preventive health behavior in absolute numbers.
The use of nontransparent reporting techniques may be owed to the unprecedented dilemma that politicians and public health communicators feel to faced: balancing transparent and truthful communication with the potential negative consequences of disclosing harms. Nontransparency, however, carries both short- and long-term risks. In the short term, it may backfire and make people more, not less, reluctant to comply with public health measures. In the long term, incomplete or nontransparent information decreases trust in health authorities [4] and can foster the spread of conspiracy beliefs.
In the symposium “Truth and trust in Public Health Communication,” we will shed light on the extent and the consequences of intransparent reporting of medical statistics and reach awareness for the likely biggest problem in public health communication.
The authors declare that a positive ethics committee vote has been obtained.
References
- 1.
- Petersen MB, Bor A, J\u248 ?rgensen F, Lindholt MF. Transparent communication about negative features of COVID-19 vaccines decreases acceptance but increases trust. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 2021;118(29):e2024597118.
- 2.
- Brown RCH, de Barra M. A Taxonomy of Non-honesty in Public Health Communication. Public Health Ethics. 2023;16(1):86-101.
- 3.
- de Barra M, Brown RCH. Public-health communication should be more transparent. Nat Hum Behav. 2023;7(5):662-4.
- 4.
- Wegwarth O, Hertwig R, Giese H, Fineberg HV. The impact of nontransparent health communication during the COVID-19 pandemic on vaccine-hesitant people’s perception of vaccines. Front Public Health. 2024;11.
