Step 5: Identify Appropriate, Trusted Messengers to Deliver Messages
At-risk populations might respond differently to a message depending on the messenger. For many groups, the person delivering the message is often better received if he or she is from a similar racial or ethnic group or is in a similar situation as the intended audience. Doors are more likely to open for peers who deliver health care messages to their neighbors than for someone from a different background who lives outside the neighborhood.
Even when members of an at-risk population group have access to the mainstream media, they might be more responsive (and therefore more willing to follow directions) if someone they know or trust delivers the message. For instance, elderly persons might watch television and listen to the radio, but might be more easily persuaded to take action if encouraged to do so by family or caregivers. For non-English speakers, a family member or representative of their faith community might have the most influence in delivering information.
Getting Creative with Trusted Messengers
Some localities have become creative with their methods of reaching the public in an emergency. For example, one local health jurisdiction has signed agreements to post emergency information on the marquees of banks, churches, grocery stores, and other local businesses. In addition to these important messages coming from local trusted community sources, this is useful in general for smaller communities where the might not be local daily media outlets.
People to consider as messengers include:
- Trusted persons within at-risk populations. Such persons are essential conduits of information to and from those groups. They must be identified, invited to the process, and their needs and concerns met so they are willing to be active participants in the emergency preparedness process prior to a public health emergency. The network you have been building throughout this process contains names of the community leaders considered credible by specific at-risk populations.
- Religious leaders, barbers, and hair stylists. Such persons can be trusted sources of information about health care and the community.
- Community and neighborhood leaders who are perceived as credible. Such persons are more likely to be believed by at-risk populations than official government spokespersons.
- Reporters, editors, announcers, and news directors in media outlets that serve your community. Such persons can be considered traditional messengers that will have a broad reach into most at-risk populations. Remember to include the ethnic media outlets as methods to disseminate your messages.
- The matriarch of a family. For many populations, the matriarch is the most respected and trusted source of information, while in other cultural groups, elders are the respected and trusted sources of information.
As you meet with community members to build your network, ask representatives from the different groups who they consider to be the best person to disseminate messages to their community. Avoid making assumptions about who the trusted person might be based upon your interactions with other groups.
