The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemics on the Development of Health Risk Communication: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Starting from an analysis of communication in Italy during the COVID-19 emergency period (February–June 2020), this paper provides an overview of the main challenges and opportunities for communication during pandemics. The purpose of this study is to perform a literature review contributing to the identification of practical recommendations for the improvement of current risk communication strategies. Given the variety of the parties involved in communication and the peculiarity of the theme, an integrated analysis approach was adopted, based on the connections between institutional, scientific and mass communication. On one hand, the “emotional” character of Italian institutional communication aimed at promoting solidarity and unity among citizens. On the other hand, scientific communication played a key role both as a technical and scientific consultation for the policymaker, and as a guide for mass communication. Nevertheless, a lack of awareness emerged from the institutional and scientific side of the importance of an interface between science and effective, transparent policy. It thus becomes necessary to develop new and effective communication strategies aimed at facing uncertainties and the challenges of risk communication in epidemics and pandemics. Such strategies should consider interaction between public health, human and social sciences, political science, law, ethics, communication and media studies, as each of these areas may give an important contribution to the understanding of the context in which communication occurs.