ArticleHealth research policy and systems2022
Health communication in and out of public health emergencies: to persuade or to inform?
Article in Health research policy and systems, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Digital dashboards visualizing public health data: a systematic review.Frontiers in public health · 2023Pooled it
- 'A post-test experimental study on the effects of message framing and the use of a patient testimonial on intentions of osteoarthritis patients to adhere to treatment advice'.BMC public health · 2025Trial
- Alternative Presentations of Overall and Statistical Uncertainty for Adults' Understanding of the Results of a Randomized Trial of a Public Health Intervention: Parallel Web-Based Randomized Trials.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2025Trial
- Promotion of Knowledge and Trust Surrounding Scarce Resource Allocation Policies: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA health forum · 2024Trial
- Assessing the Effect of Nonvisual Information Factors in Pandemic-Related Video Communication: Randomized Controlled Between-Subjects Experiment.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Trial
- A scoping review of behavioural science approaches and frameworks for health protection and emergency response.Perspectives in public health · 2026Article
- Coercion in public health: a scoping review of definitions.BMJ public health · 2026Article
- Informed decisions about public health and social measures.Health research policy and systems · 2025Review
- Recent advances in avian influenza virus: Molecular pathogenesis, emerging strains, and next-generation therapeutics.World journal of virology · 2025Review
- Chicago Public Health Department Social Media Communications on Twitter During the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Mpox Epidemic: Cross-Sectional Content Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Decision support tools in the absence of equipoise: the case for vaccination.BMJ public health · 2025Article
- Article
- Large Language Models Can Enable Inductive Thematic Analysis of a Social Media Corpus in a Single Prompt: Human Validation Study.JMIR infodemiology · 2024Article
- Ethical Considerations in Infodemic Management: Systematic Scoping Review.JMIR infodemiology · 2024Article
- The effects of public health and social measures (PHSM) implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic: An overview of systematic reviews.Cochrane evidence synthesis and methods · 2024Review
- Spin in dental publications: a scoping review.Brazilian oral research · 2024Article
- Improving COVID-19 vaccine uptake: a message co-design process for a national mHealth intervention in Colombia.Global health action · 2023Article
- Reflections from the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany: lessons for global health.BMJ global health · 2023Article
- Essential Skills for Health Communication, Barriers, Facilitators and the Need for Training: Perceptions of Healthcare Professionals from Seven European Countries.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Paternalistic persuasion: are doctors paternalistic when persuading patients, and how does persuasion differ from convincing and recommending?Medicine, health care, and philosophy · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Much health communication during the COVID-19 pandemic has been designed to persuade people more than to inform them. For example, messages like "masks save lives" are intended to compel people to wear face masks, not to enable them to make an informed decision about whether to wear a face mask or to understand the justification for a mask mandate. Both persuading people and informing them are reasonable goals for health communication. However, those goals can sometimes be in conflict. In this article, we discuss potential conflicts between seeking to persuade or to inform people, the use of spin to persuade people, the ethics of persuasion, and implications for health communication in the context of the pandemic and generally. Decisions to persuade people rather than enable them to make an informed choice may be justified, but the basis for those decisions should be transparent and the evidence should not be distorted. We suggest nine principles to guide decisions by health authorities about whether to try to persuade people.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.