Grand Challenges: Pandemic Readiness Initiative (PRI)

PRI Team to Offer SPHL709 Course on Reading Public Health Emergencies Through Information and Communication Research and Policy

September 25, 2024

Grand Challenges Grant Q&A: How Education Can Help Us Prepare for the Next Pandemic

November 6, 2023

Book Discussion: Asymptomatic by Joshua Weitz

March 28 and April 11, 2025
3:30-5:00 pm, School of Public Policy, Conference Room #2202. Learn about a data-based argument that can help us process what happened during COVID and think critically about and prepare for future pandemics. 
 

Health Literacy in Action

October 8, 2024 
Join us in exploring innovative approaches for improving health literacy!  Learn more about how to integrate health literacy into your work. Leaders in the health literacy field bring you a day of learning and participation. This conference will be held virtually. Register here.
 

Pandemic Readiness Initiative Public Research Seminar

November 8, 2024 
11:15 AM to 12:45 PM, Friedgen Lounge (Room 2236), School of Public Health
Learn more about COVID-19 and other public health crises from a team of UMD researchers. This research seminar is an in-person event and will be held in the Friedgen Lounge on November 8th from 11:15 AM to 12:45 PM. Please RSVP here. Contact Dr. Cynthia Baur (cbaur@umd.edu) for any questions. Hope to see you there!

Webinar: Lab and Field Experiments for Communicating Viral Exposure Risk

March 29, 2024, 3:00 PM

Description: How can we effectively communicate health risks to change behaviors? In the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, we found that beliefs about viral exposure risk were poorly aligned with actual risk, but those beliefs strongly predicted preventative health behaviors. In this talk, I will highlight several studies in which we developed and deployed behavioral interventions that effectively corrected misconceptions about health risks, reduced intentions to engage in risky health behaviors, and increased booster vaccine uptake. Importantly, these studies demonstrate the value and impact of translating insights from controlled experiments in the lab to large-scale communication campaigns via public websites and social media platforms.

Bio: Alyssa (Allie) Sinclair is the Joan Bossert Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is jointly affiliated with the Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media and the Communication Neuroscience Lab within the Annenberg School for Communication. Allie draws on her expertise in psychology and cognitive neuroscience to develop interventions and communication campaigns designed to change health beliefs and behaviors, enhance learning and memory, and motivate action to mitigate climate change. Her research interests include knowledge and belief updating, risk communication, information seeking and sharing, and misinformation correction. Allie completed her Ph.D. in Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke University, where she was supported by graduate fellowships from the National Science Foundation and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada.

For information on how to participate in the webinar, contact Cynthia Baur at cbaur@umd.edu.

Liu, B. F., Shi, D., St. Jean, B., Behre, J., & Downey, M. (2025). Theorizing Forgotten Crisis Publics: COVID Long Haulers’ Information Marginalization. Public Relations Review, 51, paper 102556. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2025.102556 
 

Downey, M., St. Jean, B., Behre, J., Raymond, K., Liu, B. F., & Shi, D. (2024). “We don’t have a lot of answers”: An investigation of COVID long-haulers’ information needs and practices. Research poster presented at the ASIS&T 2024 Annual Meeting, Calgary, Canada, October 28, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.1133

St. Jean, B., Raymond, K., Downey, M., Hodge, T., Behre, J., Liu, B. F., Shi, D., & #Miller, J. N. (2024). “Trust your gut & be tenacious with your information”: Information needs and information avoidance among COVID long-haulers. Research talk presented at the 2024 ASIS&T SIG-USE Annual Research Symposium: Toward People-First Information Behavior Research and Practice, Online, October 4, 2024.

Since 2020, the world has been impacted by a devastating pandemic, leaving millions of people dead. COVID-19 revealed failed communication, inequitable impacts, and the lack of a proactive and coordinated response that was evidence-based. The pandemic further revealed that, although system-level responses and resources are necessary, we also need to understand human behaviors in public health emergencies. Social and behavioral science research can provide this knowledge for action.

The new Pandemic Readiness Initiative (PRI) integrates a broad array of social and behavioral sciences to learn from COVID-19 and other disasters to better prepare for future public health emergencies. Our faculty are experts in public health and risk communication, health literacy, health equity, social media and other digital technologies, public opinion, cognitive processing of messages, disaster management, and cultural studies. Faculty use traditional quantitative and qualitative social science methods and cutting-edge data science techniques. Animated by core principles of health equity and community engagement, the team promotes educational opportunities for students, faculty, and practitioners across diverse fields.

Faculty Lead: Stephan Beckett (College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, beckett@umd.edu)

Primary Contact: Veerapetch Petchger (vpetchge@umd.edu)

Team Members: Joshua Weitz, PhD, Kate McPhaul, PhD

Project Description: This project focuses on enhancing wastewater surveillance as a critical tool for public health, particularly in the context of pandemic preparedness. It aims to integrate environmental, clinical, and community health insights to monitor pathogens in wastewater to provide actionable information for public health decision-makers. Key objectives include assessing the current awareness and integration of wastewater surveillance among community leaders, translating raw data into layman’s terms for the public, and evaluating trust levels in wastewater-derived data. The project also emphasizes the importance of communication strategies to engage communities and address privacy and data interpretation concerns, ultimately aiming to improve public health responses to infectious disease threats.

Primary Contact and Faculty Lead: Brooke Fisher Liu, PhD (College of Arts and Humanities, Department of Communication, bfliu@umd.edu)

Team Members: Anita Atwell Seate, PhD, Brooke Liu, PhD, Carina Zelaya, PhD, Ernesto Calvo, PhD, Laura Mendez-Pinto, Tania Nachrin, MS, Yan Qu, PhD.

This project answers the following guiding research question: What makes messages memorable and shareable within Latine communities during pandemics and other crises? The project consists of surveys in the U.S. and Latin America eliciting perspectives about effective and memorable COVID-19 messaging to inform communication approaches for future public health emergencies. We are committed to fostering culturally responsive communication approaches that empower and engage Latine communities during times of crisis.

Primary Contact and Faculty Lead: Dr. Brooke Liu, PhD (College of Arts & Humanities, Department of Communication, bfliu@umd.edu)

Team Members: Anita Atwell Seate, PhD, Christina Getrich, PhD, Brooke Liu, PhD, Carina Zelaya, PhD, Lahne Mattas-Curry, MS, and David Liendo Uriona, MPH

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, trust is broken. Some research, such as the 2024  Edelman Trust Barometer, shows that 63% of global respondents believe that government  leaders are purposely misleading community members. Scientists and public health authorities  are likewise highly distrusted. The result is fractured organizational-public relationships that  hamper community capacity to recover and bounce forward. In this challenging environment, our project investigates how a group of trust brokers, community health workers (CHWs), have  supported community resilience during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The project involves  a year-long interview and ethnographic study with CHWs who primarily work with Latine  communities in the DMV area. Ultimately, we uncover how trust can be rebuilt and sustained at  the community level to promote healthy outcomes before the next major public health crisis.

Primary Contact and Faculty Lead: Beth St. Jean (College of Information Studies, bstjean@umd.edu)

Team Members: Brooke Fisher Liu, PhD, Jane Behre, MLIS, Miranda Downey, MLIS, J. Nicole Miller, MLIS, Sandra Crouse Quinn, PhD, Twanna Hodge, MLIS

Through surveys and interviews with individuals with long COVID (“COVID long-haulers”), this project investigates their information needs, practices, and experiences. This project also investigates the various types of factors that have motivated or demotivated their COVID-related information-seeking and use, the types of information-related barriers they encountered, and their thoughts about an ideal information source or technology that would be (or would have been) most helpful for them as they navigate(d) long COVID. Learnings from this project will help us uncover ways to better prepare the information environment in future pandemics, epidemics, and personal health crises, to ensure that everyone has convenient access to trustworthy information that is accurate, relevant, understandable, useful, and actionable.

Primary Contact and Faculty Lead: Cody Buntain, PhD (College of Information Studies, cbuntain@umd.edu)

Team Members: Naeemul Hassan, PhD, Sarah McGrew, PhD, Stephen B. Thomas, PhD, Katherine Raymond, MSW

This project engages local communities in Maryland to solicit their insights on the core sources of information they use when seeking information related to their health, their perceptions of how technology shapes the information they consume, and how they engage with this technology to assess health threats and learn how to protect themselves. Through a survey, this project is developing maps of hyper-local information spaces to provide a foundation for understanding contemporary information consumption among traditionally underserved communities and the local versus national consumption patterns of health-related information. Combining this survey with digital trace and audience data, we are developing a more holistic view of the Maryland-specific information space and the central sources of health information on which Marylanders rely. We are using this data to measure social media’s role in facilitating or hindering the spread and accessibility of local public health information.

Primary Contact: Cynthia Baur, PhD (School of Public Health, cbaur@umd.edu)

Team Members: Christina Getrich, PhD, Carina Zelaya, PhD, Meg Jordan, MPH, Sandra Crouse Quinn, PhD, Katherine Raymond, MSW

This project aims to establish a baseline understanding of community experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and in its aftermath. This project also aims to gain insights about community intentions to prepare for and apply lessons learned in future pandemics. Community leaders from counties across Maryland will be invited to engage in focus group discussions about their community’s experiences. Data from this study will lead to in-depth summaries about the pandemic experiences of communities across Maryland that will help inform community-level pandemic readiness efforts.

This project will recruit community leaders in Maryland communities in late Fall 2023.

Primary Contact: Beth St. Jean, PhD (College of Information Studies, bstjean@umd.edu)

Team Members: Brooke Fisher Liu, PhD, Jane Behre, MLIS, Miranda Downey, MLIS, J. Nicole Miller, MLIS, Sandra Crouse Quinn, PhD, Twanna Hodge, MLIS

Through surveys and interviews with individuals with long COVID (“COVID long-haulers”), this project investigates their information needs, practices, and experiences. This project also investigates the various types of factors that have motivated or demotivated their COVID-related information seeking and use, the types of information-related barriers they encountered, and their thoughts about an ideal information source or technology that would be (or would have been) most helpful for them as they navigate(d) long COVID. Learnings from this project will help us uncover ways to better prepare the information environment in future pandemics, epidemics, and personal health crises, to ensure that everyone has convenient access to  trustworthy information that is accurate, relevant, understandable, useful, and actionable.

This project is actively recruiting participants with long COVID; please email Beth St. Jean for more information.

Primary Contact: Cody Buntain, PhD (College of Information Studies, cbuntain@umd.edu)

Team Members: Naeemul Hassan, PhD, Sarah McGrew, PhD, Stephen B. Thomas, PhD, Katherine Raymond, MSW

This project engages local communities around UMD to solicit their insights on the core sources of information they use when judging threats to their health, their perceptions of how technology shapes the information they consume, and how they engage with this technology to assess health threats and learn how to protect themselves. Through a survey, this project will develop maps of hyper-local information spaces and their mediascapes to provide a foundation for understanding contemporary information consumption among traditionally underserved communities. We will build on these foundations using web collection, digital ethnography, and contextual inquiry to learn how these spaces have changed over time, the degree to which technology has served to amplify or suppress voices from these communities, and policy/technological design choices that could better empower these communities.

This project will be actively recruiting participants from Prince George’s County and Baltimore City, Maryland in Fall 2023.

Primary Contact: Brooke Fisher Liu, PhD (College of Arts & Humanities, Department of Communication, bfliu@umd.edu)

Team Members: Anita Atwell Seate, PhD, Carina Zelaya, PhD, Ernesto Calvo, PhD, Laura Mendez-Pinto, Meg Jordan, MPH, Sandra Crouse Quinn, PhD, Stephen B. Thomas, PhD, Tania Nachrin, MS.

This project answers the following guiding research question: What makes messages memorable and shareable within Black and Latinx communities during pandemics and other crises? The project consists of a multi-sited rapid ethnography with the Maryland Health Advocates In-Reach and Research (HAIR) network of barbershops and salons, which will take place in the fall of 2023. Then, the team will conduct a national survey eliciting perspectives about effective and memorable COVID-19 vaccine messaging among Black and Latinx communities to inform communication approaches for these communities for future public health emergencies. We invite you to stay informed about the progress and outcomes of this project by visiting the UMD Center for Health Equity website. We are committed to fostering culturally responsive communication approaches that empower and engage Black and Latinx communities during times of crisis.

This project will actively recruit participants from the Maryland HAIR network in the Fall 2023, and a broader national sample in Spring 2024.