Evaluating risk communication during Extreme Weather
This literature review in Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in Canada conducted a review of literature looking at communications from stakeholders in the communities, emergency management and health. They identified areas that facilitate or impede the success of risk communication and suggest a framework to address knowledge gaps.
Introduction: Communicating risk to the public continues to be a challenge for public health practitioners working in the area of climate change. We conducted a scoping lit erature review on the evaluation of risk communication for extreme weather and cli mate change to inform local public health messaging, consistent with requirements under the Ontario Public Health Standards (OPHS), which were updated in 2018 to include effective communication regarding climate change and extreme weather.
Methods: Search strategies were developed by library information specialists and used to retrieve peerreviewed academic and grey literature from bibliographic databases (Medline, Embase, Scopus and CINAHL) and Google country specific searches, respec tively. The search strategy was validated through a workshop with experts and com munity stakeholders, with expertise in environment, health, emergency management and risk communication.
Results: A total of 43 articles were included. These articles addressed issues such as: climate change (n = 22), flooding (n = 12), hurricane events (n = 5), extreme heat (n = 2), and wild fires (n = 2). Studies were predominantly from the US (n = 14), Europe (n = 6) and Canada (n = 5).
Conclusion: To meet the OPHS 2018, public health practitioners need to engage in effec tive risk communication to motivate local actions that mitigate the effects of extreme weather and climate change. Based on the scoping review, risk communication efforts during shortterm extreme weather events appear to be more effective than efforts to communicate risk around climate change. This distinction could highlight a unique opportunity for public health to adapt strategies commonly used for extreme weather to climate change.