ASEF’s Project Executive, Mr Peter LUTZ attended a conference on “Communicating Infectious Disease Risk in a Dangerous Decade: From Emergencies to Prevention” on 26-27 June 2013 in Hong Kong SAR. The event was organised by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre of Hong Kong University. Mr LUTZ presented the outcomes of ASEF’s workshop on ‘Effective Risk Communication for Public Health Emergencies and the Role of Social Media’ that took place on 3-4 June 2013, in Bali, Indonesia.
The Hong Kong conference brought together experts and practitioners from public health, science, communication, and the social sciences to share their experiences, identify weaknesses and suggest new ways of effective communication, with the objective to improve people’s understanding of the risk of emerging infectious diseases so that they can respond more effectively towards such risk.
The conference focussed on the emergence of new diseases, lessons learned on risk communication from the SARS pandemic, building communication capacity in Asia, communicating risk to communities, communication for better behavioural intervention, linking the global and local gaps and challenges in communication, and the role of social media in risk communication.