Public opinion guidance and science and technology dissemination for public health emergencies

Abstract

Public opinion guidance plays a positive role in public health emergencies response and handling. This paper firstly discusses the guidance of science and technology dissemination on public opinion during health emergencies, and then analyzes the media agenda setting, public reaction change and government policies for the 2009 pandemic influenza A H1N1 with agenda-setting theory and case study method. On the basis of that, this paper makes further discussion on science and technology dissemination strategies for public health emergencies and reaches a conclusion that the content of dissemination should be directly related to security and health; should be information about incident development and government response which helps to compose an overall information stream during crisis communication; and should focus on problems arising after incident outbreak and subjects the public is interested in or concerned with; and also science and technology dissemination should be done at different developing stages of the incident with corresponding focuses. © 2013 WIT Press.