Vaccine Communication in a Pandemic: Strengthening Vaccine Literacy, Restoring Trust and Engaging Communities to Foster Vaccine Confidence and Uptake

This book addresses the global need for effective, ethical and evidence-based health communication, against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. It highlights how health communication can facilitate effective responses to disease threats, build vaccine literacy and strengthen the public’s trust in governments and health institutions.

The volume offers a variety of communication perspectives from leading international experts, with particular attention to the interrelated subjects of vaccine literacy and trust. Chapters present conceptual frameworks, research evidence, and novel ideas about ways to build trust, craft and target communication interventions, leverage digital technologies, integrate public health and health systems, apply health diplomacy, engage multiple sectors, and foster a vaccine-protected world.
Vaccine Communication in a Pandemic will be an invaluable resource for scholars, researchers and practitioners of communication studies, public health and health literacy, health and public policy, media advocacy, media studies and mass communication. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Health Communication: International Perspectives.

Dr. Scott C. Ratzan has three decades of pioneering accomplishments domestically and globally in health communication, health literacy and strategic diplomacy. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Health Communication: International Perspectives. He holds professorial positions at CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Tufts University School of Medicine, and the University of St Andrews School of Medicine. He serves on the Board of Global Health for the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine and has edited several books including the Mad Cow Crisis: Health and the Public Good (1998) and AIDS: Effective Health Communication for the 90s (1993).