To communicate with U.S.-bound refugees during travel to the United States during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, five federal and international organizations collaborated in a strategic work group to synergize COVID-19 prevention health messaging and COVID-19 considerations before, during, and after travel, as well as promote shared resources. This work group sought to establish consistent COVID-19 messaging, disseminate messages to partners, and identify message gaps as the pandemic evolved. In early Fall 2020, CDC released new communication materials, including a fact sheet, a welcome booklet, and infographics translated into 19 languages, to address refugee health partners' need for culturally and linguistically concordant educational materials for refugees. Rapidly changing health communications needs during the pandemic fostered opportunities for collaboration among federal and refugee health partners and highlighted a long-standing need among agencies to address health messaging across the continuum of care for refugees.

Many efforts across the farm-to-fork continuum aim to reduce foodborne disease and outbreaks. Real-time risk communication is an important component of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) efforts, especially during outbreaks. To inform risk communication with the public during multistate foodborne outbreaks, we conducted a series of focus groups of adults in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area to understand attitudes, perceptions, behaviors, and how people receive information around foodborne disease outbreaks. Results from these focus groups provided insight on factors that might influence consumer perception and behavior during an outbreak. Perceived outbreak proximity and personal consumption of an outbreak vehicle were identified as also reported hearing about multiple outbreaks per year some drivers of perceived risk to an outbreak. Participants through a variety of sources and following recommended actions during an outbreak, implying some existing penetration of current risk messages for multistate foodborne outbreaks. Findings from these focus groups are a first step in increasing understanding of how CDC messages affect the consumers' ability to access and act upon reliable information to protect their health during outbreaks and serve as a baseline for further evaluation efforts of CDC risk communication strategy for multistate foodborne outbreaks.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) coordinates investigations of multistate foodborne outbreaks. To better inform future communication efforts with the public during these outbreaks, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of comments on multistate foodborne outbreak Facebook posts distributed on the CDCs Facebook page September to December 2018. The CDC created 27 Facebook posts for nine multistate foodborne outbreaks (one to eight posts per outbreak), and 2,612 comments were analyzed. The CDC used two Web tools to deliver outbreak information: food safety alerts (FSAs) and investigation notices (INs). Qualitative analyses were conducted separately for Facebook posts resulting from FSAs and INs. Using an inductive coding approach, we identified nine categories of comments: information sharing (e.g., tagging others), actions (e.g., discarding contaminated food), convictions and beliefs (e.g., food-related preconceived notions), questions (e.g., clarifying outbreak location), emotional responses (e.g., worry), blame (e.g., responsibility for outbreak), food specific (e.g., repackaging ground beef and losing identifying information), promoting another cause (e.g., vaccine hesitancy), and unrelated. No differences were found between FSAs and INs. Facebook users helped further disseminate important outbreak information but identified barriers that prevented them from taking recommended actions. Real-time evaluation of social media during outbreaks provides opportunities to refine messaging and improve communication. 2022, International Association for Food Protection.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) coordinates investigations of multistate foodborne outbreaks. To better inform future communication efforts with the public during these outbreaks, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of comments on multistate foodborne outbreak Facebook posts distributed on the CDC’s Facebook page September to December 2018. The CDC created 27 Facebook posts for nine multistate foodborne outbreaks (one to eight posts per outbreak), and 2,612 comments were analyzed. The CDC used two Web tools to deliver outbreak information: food safety alerts (FSAs) and investigation notices (INs). Qualitative analyses were conducted separately for Facebook posts resulting from FSAs and INs. Using an inductive coding approach, we identified nine categories of comments: information sharing (e.g., tagging others), actions (e.g., discarding contaminated food), convictions and beliefs (e.g., food-related preconceived notions), questions (e.g., clarifying outbreak location), emotional responses (e.g., worry), blame (e.g., responsibility for outbreak), food specific (e.g., repackaging ground beef and losing identifying information), promoting another cause (e.g., vaccine hesitancy), and unrelated. No differences were found between FSAs and INs. Facebook users helped further disseminate important outbreak information but identified barriers that prevented them from taking recommended actions. Real-time evaluation of social media during outbreaks provides opportunities to refine messaging and improve communication. © 2022, International Association for Food Protection.

In this commentary, we briefly describe our methodology in conducting a remote qualitative investigation with essential workers from southwest Kansas, and then describe some key considerations, challenges, and lessons learned in recruiting and conducting interviews remotely. From August 4, 2020 through August 26, 2020, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) staff conducted five phone interviews with culturally and linguistically diverse employees in southwest Kansas to understand COVID-19 knowledge, attitudes, and practices and communication preferences. Our experience details the potential challenges of the federal government in recruiting individuals from these communities and highlights the possibilities for more effectively engaging health department and community partners to support investigation efforts. Optimizing recruitment strategies with additional participation from community partners, developing culturally and linguistically appropriate data collection tools, and providing supportive resources and services may augment participation from refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) communities in similar remote investigations.