The first 24–48 hours of a health emergency require the responding health agency to communicate with the public about what they know, what they don’t know, and what they are doing to find new information. By engaging in initial messages early in a crisis, health agencies can demonstrate credibility and build trust with the public. This chapter deconstructs initial messages and identifies four critical message components: addressing uncertainty, expressing empathy, making a commitment, and providing messages of self-efficacy. By delivering initial messages early and often a health agency can demonstrate the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) principles of Be First, Be Right, Be Credible, Show Respect, Express Empathy, and Promote Action. The chapter provides practical steps on how to write initial messages and provides quick response communication planning and implementation steps such as identifying communication objectives, audiences, key messages, and channels and developing communication products/materials. This chapter also includes key tips related to spokespeople, partner agecies, and call centers regarding ensuring message consistency during an emergency response. Uncertainty reduction theory is highlighted. A student case study analyzes the Flint Water Crisis using the CERC framework. Reflection questions are included at the end of the chapter.

Health emergencies create unique information needs for different audience segments. This chapter outlines the differences in information needs between the general public and the medical community. Information needs of the medical community relate to scientific guidance, data reporting, health risks, personal protective equipment, interventions, and treatments. By analyzing communications used during a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Clinical Outreach and Community Activity team webinar on COVID-19 vaccines, readers can identify the unique needs of the medical community. Epidemiologists and emergency risk communications can cocreate data-driven and actionable emergency messages when they collaborate. This chapter offers insights into how epidemiologists and emergency risk communicators can cocreate messages on health risks and interventions and leverage data graphics to help explain health risks to the public. The chapter also describes how health care practitioners can use and apply the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) framework within health care organizations to communicate to staff and patients. A student case study analyzes the US Ebola health emergency using the CERC framework. Reflection questions are included at the end of the chapter.

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted individuals worldwide, regardless of their geographic location, religious or political beliefs, occupation, or social standing. People’s experiences were directly impacted by lockdown measures, physical distancing, masks, vaccine recommendations, or illness of self or friend or family member, as well as by how their local and national elected officials and public health leaders managed and communicated about the pandemic. As people went into lockdown, they went online and found a proliferation of information both true and false about the pandemic. The constant deluge of online information, the new and evolving outbreak, and the worldwide impact created a complex health emergency.  The COVID-19 pandemic brought emergency risk communication to the forefront of every health agency in the United States, from city to county to state to federal levels of government. This chapter provides an overview of public health preparedness; explains how Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) is different from day-to-day public health communication; summarizes the CERC framework and phase-based messaging; and outlines how risk perception impacts the way people process information about health threats. A student case study analyzes a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak using the CERC framework. Reflection questions are included at the end of the chapter.

This chapter outlines practical ways emergency risk communicators can use evaluation throughout a health emergency to inform and improve emergency risk communication messaging strategies and activities. The chapter starts with a basic orientation on program evaluation and its relevance to emergency risk communication. Next, the chapter provides an in-depth look at 16 communication evaluation activities that emergency risk communications can use throughout a health emergency. Then the chapter describes how organizations learn after health emergencies and how organizational learning can inform community resilience and public education. Next, the chapter outlines current theoretical research approaches to evaluating emergency risk communication and practical ways to apply this research during a health emergency. The chapter highlights the ADKAR model for organizational change management, and a student case study uses the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication framework to analyze how the Georgia Department of Health communicating during the e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury (EVALI) outbreak. End-of-chapter reflection questions are included.