This guide is aimed at community-level actors conducting Ebola preparedness activities. It covers key elements of general rumor management as well as specific rumors and possible responses to those rumors and includes a set of practical tools at the end.
Now also available in French, this toolkit developed by CCP provides national and local stakeholders, as well as program managers, with key considerations and a roadmap for instituting and implementing critical, relevant, practical and timely communication for responding to the threat of an Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak. The I-Kit guides countries in social and behavior change communication (SBCC) and risk communication activity planning, including communication plan development for every stage of an Ebola response. For any country facing a major health crisis, national preparedness plans need to include and support communication efforts. Integration of communication into the preparedness agenda from the outset ensures that preparedness communication is harmonized, relevant, timely, financially supported and aligned among all of the preparedness technical teams. Robust national communication preparedness plans maximize the effectiveness of Ebola communication and equip communication trainers and experts with a common set of tools and modules.
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This resource provides lessons from previous Ebola outbreaks in the DRC on adapting to the language needs of communities and centers language as a key trust builder between communities and public health experts.
This article (published in Military Medicine (2020) provides tips for leaders on “what to communicate and how to communicate” during a crisis, using lessons learned from the Ebola outbreak as well as lessons now emerging from the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This perspective offers practical guidelines for leaders identified here as the 3 W’s and 4C’s of crisis communication.
This journal article examines structured community engagement initiatives and real-time monitoring of community engagement activities during large-scale epidemics. Researches analysed the Community Led Ebola Action (CLEA) approach implemented through the Social Mobilization Action Consortium (SMAC) during the 2014–2016 Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, demonstrating how large-scale, coordinated community engagement interventions can be achieved and monitored in real-time during future Ebola epidemics and other similar epidemics.
Source: Community engagement in outbreak response: lessons from the 2014–2016 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone
This WHO guide for emergency risk communication (ERC) policy and practice provides overarching, evidence-based guidance on how risk communication should be practiced in an emergency. The recommendations also guide countries on building capacity for communicating risk during health emergencies.
Source: Communicating Risk in Public Health Emergencies (WHO)
2021- Developed by the Government of Sierra Leone, this resource features facts about Ebola, prevention, signs and symptoms, treatment and how to distinguish between COVID-19 and Ebola Virus Disease.
Source: 2021 Government of Sierra Leone Key Messages for EVD
This fact sheet distinguishes between Covid-19 and Ebola in terms of cause, transmission, signs and symptoms and risk factors.
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Preliminary results from research in post-Ebola Guinea focusing on patient-provider trust. The objective of this research is to identify how men and women in Guinea described their interactions with health providers in health facilities and the factors that contributed to trust, or lack of trust, in these facilities.
This WHO Ebola fact sheet (2021) provides comprehensive facts on Ebola, covering transmission, symptoms, prevention and control, vaccine, care for those recovered from Ebola and WHO response.
Source: WHO Ebola Fact Sheet
The Ebola Communication Network was originally developed by the Health Communication Capacity Collaborative (Cooperative Agreement #AID-OAA-A-12-00058) and expanded under Breakthrough ACTION (Cooperative Agreement #AID-OAA-A-17-00017) both under the leadership of Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs. The contents of this website do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID, the United States Government, or Johns Hopkins University.