Behavioral Insights for Better Public Communication in Health Crisis

Abstract

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, effective public communication became of utmost importance. This is especially true for the time after the easing of lockdowns, which meant an increased emphasis on personal responsibility and adoption of self-care measures. We conducted an experiment that tested three behavioral tools for communication —framing, population targeting, and social norms— to assess behavioral biases that pose a barrier to effective communication efforts and provide useful information for governments to use in crisis situations. In order to measure the effectiveness of the various communication features, we relied on an Attitudes Scale developed and tested for this purpose.

Keywords

• Behavioral biases
• Crisis communication
• COVID-19
• Framing
• Population targeting
• Social norms