The Pandemic Response: How a Veteran Health Communicator, Former Journalist Sees It

In this episode, we talk with Dan Rutz, a veteran public health communications professional and former CNN medical contributor. Dan gives his candid thoughts and perspectives on the impact of the global pandemic, the effectiveness of our nation's COVID-19 public health interventions, and the ways in which public health communicators and other professionals can prepare for future public health threats.

Transcript

Episode 4:  The Pandemic Response: How a Veteran Health Communicator, Former Journalist Sees It   

Robert Jennings:  Joining me today is Dan Rutz. Dan is a familiar presence in the field of public health communication, both nationally and internationally.  Currently Dan works as a public health consultant and as an adjunct faculty member at Emory University, where he teaches health communications.  He formerly served as an associate director of communication science for the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the CDC.  Dan is an expert in communication policy on infectious diseases, including SARS and other various outbreaks around the world, and he also helped in the establishment of an international standard for public health emergency communication. Prior to joining CDC, he served as a CNN on air medical correspondent.  Welcome Dan, and thank you for being here. 

Dan Rutz:   Robert. It's my pleasure. 

Robert Jennings: Well, as I said, you are a presence in the public health communication world. And so, I want to start off by asking you a question about an opinion piece you wrote in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, where you said public health and politics don't mix, but most cooperate.  What did you mean by that? 

Dan Rutz:    Well, they must cooperate and because. Both are important in not only identifying a policy but implementing it. And they both have different roles to play politics. Uh, politicians fund things, they make the laws, they set policies, but they need a science-based to do that on matters of.

And that's where the public health community, obviously has a great deal to contribute, especially when we're dealing with a situation like we are now a global pandemic, which is waning in parts of the world and still raging in the US.   

Robert Jennings:   I want to just touch a little bit more on public health and politics. Do we understand each other?  Does politics understand public health and does public health understand politics? Where is the rub? 

Dan Rutz: I think that's a good choice of words because the understanding is minimal. and often based not only on a failure to appreciate the other side, what their pressures are, what their constituencies look like and what their mandates might be, but also inherent conflicts that arise, which then of course, cause the tension that you're referring to.  Politicians have a broader appreciation or need to appreciate interests that lie beyond the health realm. Whereas public health generally, has a fairly narrow focus on issues directly related to either health in general or a specific threat. 

And even within that combination of circumstances, there's going to be conflicts within each discipline, which is to say that public health implementations to try to control the spread of COVID-19 might and do in fact touch on other public health priorities.

And then we have to reconcile those as to risk and benefit, which is it worth? 

Robert Jennings:  That's a good point in that those conflicts typically impact us in a negative way.  So we really need to try to work out some of those conflicts. Do you think that the crisis and emergency risk communication principles were applied consistently across the board during the response? And do you think the principals need to be revisited to take into account the INFODEMIC fueled by misinformation and disinformation? 

Dan Rutz:  Sadly, Robert, they were not adhered to throughout the pandemic. Really at every stage we failed to live up to those of really very basic principles and had we done so, I think we would have avoided some of the problems we're having now, especially with regard to vaccine uptake, which is emerging as a matter of trust, more than anything else.

And the risk communication principles are really quite common sense oriented but they do require some courage because when you are fully honest with your audience, and that is the most important principle of risk communication, trustworthiness, but being honesty requires admitting what is not known.

And we have failed to do that too many times and have jumped to you know, guidance that is not properly nuanced and therefore causes people to question its validity, especially if subsequently it's found to be either an overstatement or otherwise in error. So that loss of trust then carries over to other issues.

And in the present time it's vaccine hesitancy.  That's our major problem in the United States. It's a paradox that we have now an excess of excellent vaccines available across the country, and yet a sizeable percentage of the population refusing to take advantage of that for reasons of their own, but typically tied to the common denominator of distrust in authority.

The paradox is that in other parts of the world, and I have close contacts in the African continent in particular, they would give anything to get vaccine there and less than 1% of the population there has access to vaccines. And yet there, they have a raging pandemic with all of the hardships that we experienced a year ago.

They're going through now. It's a very sad imbalance. 

Robert Jennings: Well, there are definitely some additional forces at work here. And I think that plays into a lot of what you're talking about. So in its call for a national strategy to combat misinformation and disinformation, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security has called misinformation and disinformation a national security threat.  Do you agree? And what should we do about it? 

Dan Rutz: I do agree. I think it's an apt comparison because I have long maintained that public health issues in general are national security issues. And really this is the pandemic of, I hope a lifetime,  I've lived a long time. I've never experienced anything like this before in my personal life.

And I hope never to, again.  I would extend that same hope onto my children and grandchildren at this point that they don't have to go through it twice because it has shown to us that the extent of disruption in the lives of people at every single level imaginable  including, first and foremost, health itself and life and death.

I mean, this pandemic has resulted in a huge increase in deaths that otherwise would not have happened as early as they did.  The economic harm that it caused.  The harm in social institutions and economic structures, travel, the basic enjoyment of life, of all social and personal relationships.  All of that was thrown awry by a pandemic that, you know, came to us very, very swiftly, that has affected the country profoundly.

And it does affect our national security. So I think it is a fair comparison. It's a matter of national security here and every other country affected. 

Robert Jennings:  So you said this is a pandemic of a lifetime. Where do you think we are globally in managing the next pandemic? 

Dan Rutz: I don't think we've even started to consider that yet, because we're still too caught up in this one.

But if there's a silver lining in this, Robert, I hope it might be the capacity to step back and dispassionately, look at everything we did and failed to do. And that includes the technical experts. If we look at the technical guidance that was put forth was honestly conveyed, were risks and benefits of these proposals honestly stated based on the science, rather than a political constituency or a need to adhere to some political ideology?

Robert Jennings: Well said Dan, and, and so getting back to, to our listeners, our core listeners from a public health communication standpoint, what do we need to be doing today to be prepared for future threats and just strictly from the communication standpoint.  

Dan Rutz: Well, first of all, we have to have thick skin and to my colleagues who might be listening to this in public health communication believe me, I shared your pain for a good many years and still do although now from a slow, but somewhat peripheral point of view.  I know that it is common for us as communicators, not to be taken as seriously as we should.

Most of you know the resources and appropriations go frankly go to the technical side, we need to have scientists solve the technical issues and come up with the guidance that we then put forth to the public. I do wish though that for a great. Something greater than just what appears oftentimes to be lip service in appreciating the role of communications, the weakest link in the public health policy administration and the guidance acceptance, uh, is the one that needs to be addressed.

And too often, that is the communications link, not because of our failures as communicators, but for the fact that I think too often, we're forced to work with one hand tied behind our backs. I, and I would hope for a greater, uh, you know, a more, more candor, uh, in discussing amongst, uh, ourselves and technical experts.

Robert Jennings: Well, as an educator, I know you know this but when I was in college and I was going through my communication courses, one of my professors said that no one will ever pat you on the back so you'll have to toot your own horn.

In other words, he was saying that communications really has to push their way to the front of the table and let their voices be heard. So Dan, I'm going to finish up by asking you this last question.

Public Health's reputation took a hit during the pandemic. Are there some practical steps you would recommend taking to begin repairing this reputation and to rebuild public trust? 

Dan Rutz: Yes. And it's vitally important that we do that. And I think it starts with again, you know, in a sense, sharing the dilemma with our audiences and with those who are giving us who we've may feel at times are giving us pushback, whether they be from the political community or from even within our own organization.

To understand, first of all, that we have this common ground that we are all anybody who devotes themselves to this field cares about people. And, and that’s an important, common denominator that we shouldn't lose sight of. If we truly, in, in public health respect each other for that basic contention that we're in this because we want to serve people.

We care about them and we want to do what we can to minimize human suffering in the world. That should make the next part of this a lot easier. That conversation needs to be carried to the general public as well. We need to understand both the benefits and the limitations of the media that we use to communicate with.

We really haven't talked much about that, but it's important because while the media's interests do overlap ours, they certainly don't coincide exclusively with ours, the media, and I was a journalist for a long, long time, and probably what a denied this one. It's obvious to me now, in retrospect, that making a good story involves a dramatic appeal.

And sometimes that, you know, is fanning the flames of insecurity of anxiety and of outright conflict among constituencies. I regret that today's media seems to be more than never engaged in that kind of behavior. And that is something we need to be very cautious of when we engage them. We need them, they perform an absolutely vital role in reaching audiences, but it's important for us to understand their limitations and we can do that best.

I think by making our argument as clearly and as passionately as possible when we share data. Put it in perspective, help people, including journalists to understand that when we get people upset unnecessarily, we're doing our audiences, a disservice people want, they want information, but they need to have information they can trust and they need to be able to understand what it means to.

Robert Jennings: Well, we're going to have to let that be the last word, Dan, but we definitely need to get you back so we can talk about some of the media platforms that you were talking about, that we didn't get a chance to delve into. But thanks again for joining me today, Dan, it's really been a pleasure.   

Dan Rutz: The pleasure has been mine, Robert, and I thank you very much and to the entire NPHIC community for all they do in this important time, especially, but really every time.

Robert Jennings: Thank you. This has been public health speaks.