How to communicate a pandemic to society: The professional point of view. a case study of covid-19 in the south of europe

Abstract

Covid-19 has been the main focus of attention since it began spreading in December 2019. Scientific, political, and media actors have been overwhelmed by a wave of facts and data that has grown exponentially. Reporting on health crises is a challenge for scientific communicators and journalists, and spreading validated information from hospitals and research centers to society is not easy in a pandemic situation. To detail how the most important biomedical research centers in Barcelona have managed this situation to make information related to Covid-19 available to the population, a qualitative analysis of interviews carried out with communication experts at the studied research centers was carried out. The results show that the media have diverted their interest towards Covid-19, that there is a lot of pressure to publish articles, and that scientists have made a great effort to disseminate useful information. The study shows that health communicators are key players during a pandemic, that research centers need to focus on the digital age, and that more investment in communication is needed.