The COVID-19 pandemic challenged the public health system to respond to an emerging, difficult-to-understand pathogen through demanding behaviors, including staying at home, masking for long periods, and vaccinating multiple times. We discuss key challenges of the pandemic health communication efforts deployed in the United States from 2020 to 2022 and identify research priorities. One priority is communicating about uncertainty in ways that prepare the public for disagreement and likely changes in recommendations as scientific understanding advances: How can changes in understanding and recommendations foster a sense that “science works as intended” rather than “the experts are clueless” and prevent creating a void to be filled by misinformation? A second priority concerns creating a culturally fluent framework for asking people to engage in difficult and novel actions: How can health messages foster the perception that difficulties of behavior change signal that the change is important rather than that the change “is not for people like me?” A third priority entails a shift from communication strategies that focus on knowledge and attitudes to interventions that focus on norms, policy, communication about policy, and channel factors that impair behavior change: How can we move beyond educating and correcting misinformation to achieving desired actions?

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 大流行期间的健康沟通和行为改变


COVID-19 大流行对公共卫生系统提出了挑战，要求其通过严格的行为来应对一种新出现的、难以理解的病原体，包括呆在家里、长时间佩戴口罩和多次接种疫苗。我们讨论了 2020 年至 2022 年美国部署的大流行健康传播工作的主要挑战，并确定了研究重点。一个优先事项是就不确定性进行交流，让公众做好准备，应对随着科学理解的进步而出现的分歧和建议可能发生的变化：理解和建议的变化如何培养一种“科学按预期发挥作用”而不是“专家毫无头绪”的感觉防止创造一个被错误信息填补的空白？第二个优先事项涉及创建一个文化流畅的框架，要求人们参与困难和新颖的行动：健康信息如何培养这样一种观念，即行为改变的困难表明改变很重要，而不是改变“不适合像我这样的人” ？”第三个优先事项需要从关注知识和态度的沟通策略转向关注规范、政策、政策沟通以及损害行为改变的渠道因素的干预措施：我们如何才能超越教育和纠正错误信息，以实现预期的行动？