UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Though the COVID-19 pandemic impacts all people across all nations, individual perceptions and responses to the outbreak have been anything but uniform. Communication around the health crisis has varied wildly, resulting in an inconsistent, ever-evolving and dizzyingly complex situation.
Aiming to better understand the efficacy of public health messaging in a pandemic, a team of Penn State researchers led by Dr. Rob Lennon, associate professor from the College of Medicine, designed and deployed an open-ended survey that has been translated into 23 languages and reached more than 73 countries.
The study, titled “COVID-19 Health Messaging Efficacy and its Impact on Public Perception, Anxiety and Behavior,” was launched In April 2020 through the Huck Institutes’ Coronavirus Seed Fund. The data being collected includes a great amount of qualitative, as well as quantitative information.
“I was surprised at the depth of some of these questions,” said podcast host Cole Hons. “Just the process of taking the survey forced me to really reflect on the pandemic in a new way.”