American University of Beirut
"The differences in the public's experiences with and the use of the communicated messages during this pandemic point to the need to acknowledge variations in the types of societies, and to understand the inherent nature of their social networks and the social relations among their members in order to improve the messages to suit their needs..."
Grounded in behavioural and social science theory, research, and practice, risk communication in public health aims at promoting healthy behaviours among individuals and communities through strategic exchange of information. However, the concomitant spread of misinformation related to public health emergencies has become more prominent and rapid with the global proliferation of social media, resulting - in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic - in what the World Health Organization (WHO) has termed an "infodemic". This paper refers to social science and risk communication theory to discuss how the political, economic, and social contexts in a country, and not only the content of the messages that people receive from officials, affect how they interpret and act on information. It highlights how this has played out in Lebanon, whose government declared a "state of general mobilization" on March 15 2020 after reporting its first confirmed case on February 21 2020. It also identifies societal aspects of importance in a low- and middle-income country (LMIC) fraught with social, economic, and political inequalities that undermine efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19. Implications to inform state response in the context of other LMICs are also discussed.