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KrizKom: Crisis communication in cases of public health crises and social listening

General information

Code: ARIS V5-24042
Period: 1.10.2024 - 30.9.2026
Project leader at FDV: prof.dr. Dejan Verčič
Co-financiers: Sofinancerja: ARIS in Ministrstvo za zdravje RS
Research activity: Social sciences

Abstract

The research project focuses on health crisis communication and social listening in Slovenia. Evaluations by the World Health Organization in 2017 and the European Center for Disease Control in 2024 drew attention to the lack of competence in health communication in Slovenia. The Resolution on the National Health Care Plan 2015-2025 (ResNPZV 2015-205) already points to this, in which there is talk of "poor communication", "we will ensure better communication in health care and communication of health care with other stakeholders", ""improve communication in health care", to ensure "raising the culture of communication in health care", etc. The covid-19 pandemic has revealed that one of the weakest points of the Slovenian healthcare system is the ability to communicate in a crisis in the event of a public health crisis and, in particular, to actively listen to and manage rumors. We have found ourselves in a world of information overload, some of which is accurate and some of which is not. It's an infodemic. In response to such new challenges, there has been a need for a scientific approach to infodemic management, which has been called infodemiology, the science of infodemic management. In Slovenia, we need to regulate and improve the skills for managing health crises and especially health crisis communication. In doing so, it is necessary to compare our crisis management and crisis communication management plans with comparable countries and review the placement and functioning of crisis communication in public health crises of key institutions and actors that influence how people will react to the adoption of public health crisis measures. Another important aspect relates to individuals and their response to crisis communication in individual countries, which means that it is necessary to establish monitoring systems and analyze their responses. We are talking about active social listening. Without this feedback, it is impossible to successfully manage crises in today's digitalized world, as they are complex and interdependent. It is also not possible to successfully manage and implement crisis communication and maintain such a level of trust among the target publics that the social consensus does not completely collapse. Different countries have different levels of success in crisis management and crisis communication. Both examples of good and bad practices can offer learning opportunities. Therefore, the purpose of the project is to carry out a desktop comparative analysis with reference countries and to prepare guidelines for listening to andmanaging rumors, as well as conducting training workshops for key stakeholders. All this will be supported by a systematic analysis of basicscientific literature and World Health Organization materials. The project includes the following activities: analysis of written sources and analyzesof good practices and guidelines for crisis health communication and active listening as part of public health crisis communication in referencecountries, analysis of the current situation regarding crisis health communication and active listening with identified key stakeholders involved inpublic health communication, preparation of a proposal for recommendations and guidelines for crisis health communication, active listening,adaptation of communication and management of rumors, and preparation of a seminar and educational workshops on crisis communication andactive listening with practical challenges/tasks and scientific and professional conference on infodemic (overabundance of information) andinfodemiology (scientific management of infodemic).

The phases of the project and their realization

The work program will be divided into six interconnected work packages (WBs), which will act as a basis for other work packages of the subject project, or means for achieving the project's goals.

 
The work packages of the project are as follows:

-Project management (DS1),

-Analysis of written sources (DS2),

-Analysis of the situation in Slovenia (DS3),

-Proposals of guidelines recommendations (DS4),

-Education (DS5) and

-Dissemination (DS6).

Research Organisation

https://cris.cobiss.net/ecris/si/en/project/22320

Researchers

https://cris.cobiss.net/ecris/si/en/project/22320

Citations for bibliographic records

https://cris.cobiss.net/ecris/si/en/project/22320

Key words

health crisis communication, infodemic, infodemiology, social listening


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