ReviewPhilosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences2023
Effectiveness of communications in enhancing adherence to public health behavioural interventions: a COVID-19 evidence review.
Review in Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 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
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 20 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 transmission: rapid review of evidence from Italy, the United States, the United Kingdom, and China.Frontiers in public health · 2024Pooled it
- Commentary on Buss et al.: State endorsement as a driver of vape-assisted smoking cessation: Interpreting early evidence from Swap to Stop.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2026Article
- A qualitative study exploring Malaysian women's preferences for authority or emotional appeals in public health messages promoting breast cancer screening.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- 'Cough and sneeze into your elbow': a field study testing the effects of persuasive messages on compliance with behavioral measures to prevent the spread of respiratory viruses.Health psychology and behavioral medicine · 2026Article
- Factors associated with patient adherence to medical recommendations during a health crisis.PloS one · 2026Article
- "Public health without effective health communication is really nothing": Key informant interviews and thematic analysis as part of a multi-step research process to develop modernized public health communication competencies.Journal of public health research · 2025Article
- Impact of information dissemination and behavioural responses on epidemic dynamics: A multi-layer network analysis.Infectious Disease Modelling · 2025Article
- WHO'Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- The differential effects of parent-targeted alcohol harm-reduction campaigns with varying executional styles.Drug and alcohol review · 2025Article
- The effects of visitor restrictions on inpatients and family visitors during the COVID-19 pandemic: insights from a cross-sectional survey in China.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Non-pharmaceutical interventions: evaluating challenges and priorities for future health shocks.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2024Article
- COVID-19 Personal Protective Behaviors during Large Social Events: The Value of Behavioral Observations.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Strategies adopted by oral physicians, oral and maxillofacial surgeons, and oral pathologists in patient education on oral cancer: A Nigerian study.Cancer reports (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2024Article
- Executive Summary to the Royal Society report "COVID-19: examining the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions".Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences · 2023Article
- Effectiveness of communications in enhancing adherence to public health behavioural interventions: a COVID-19 evidence review.Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Health communication has relevance for virtually every aspect of health and well-being, including disease prevention. This review explored the effectiveness of communications in enhancing the adoption of or adherence to behavioural interventions (non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs)) related to COVID-19. The review takes the UK as a case study and focuses on self-reported behaviours (e.g. social distancing). It also reviews the psychosocial determinants of adherence. Searches were conducted using PubMed, Scopus, CINAL, ASSIA and iCite databases. Eleven thousand five hundred records were identified and 13 were included in the final sample. Included studies suggest that NPI adoption or adherence was generally high, and communication had significant impacts, with key themes including clarity and consistency, trust and control. Based on the evidence in this review, features of effective communication in the context of NPI adoption or adherence are (i) information should be conveyed clearly and conflicting (mixed) messages should be avoided; (ii) information should be conveyed by trusted sources (e.g. health authorities) and (iii) communication should strike a balance between being authoritative but avoiding language seen as controlling (e.g. 'you must'). Future research should prioritize quantitative, experimental and longitudinal study designs, that focus specifically on communication as an intervention, and which measure behaviour. This article is part of the theme issue 'The effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions on the COVID-19 pandemic: the evidence'.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.