An Evaluation of Global Hazard Communication with Ethical Considerations

This article therefore provides an opportunity to examine the resource in more detail and suggest areas which could be improved. Moreover, on a larger scale, these improvements may be applicable to similar communication tools produced by other agencies worldwide whether they cover hazards or not 18,19,20. The global hazards weekly bulletin at Public Health England (PHE) was designed to provide an easy to use, informative weekly guide on natural and technological hazards that have occurred in the previous week 21. Information is gathered via a Google Alerts system with over thirty search terms used to identify any news articles on any hazard occurring globally (see Appendix 1). These articles are then sorted into individual hazards and each is reviewed for any political or other reporting bias. This review process is subject to a specified criteria and guidance (see Appendix 2). For example, any articles that are not from a reputable source, or have an overtly political stance, are removed. The resulting information is then sorted into a list of hazards broken down by country and provides the article’s headline with a hyperlink embedded which allows the reader to click and view the source directly. There are currently over 6000 subscribers to the service from around the world. Objectives -The objectives of our research are as follows: -To establish whether the bulletin achieves its aims of informing the public of hazards occurring throughout the world; -To iden...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Source Type: research