Understanding public health communication design globally during the Covid-19 pandemic : The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The aim of the study reported in this paper is to develop an understanding of official public health communication design on Covid-19 globally. As a new disease, the rapid rise in the sheer volume of new scientific information about Covid-19 surpasses human processing capabilities, impacting the public and policy makers, creating an ‘infodemic crisis’. Following a two-stage message/language framing and visual design analysis of crowdsourced official Covid-19 Public Health material we present findings from 46 countries, across five continents, and more in-depth analysis of 32 material from 17 countries. This is the first of its kind paper offering an analysis of the global situation on Covid-19 public health communication design; and six draft recommendations on how to effectively plan communication and frame messages that are compelling and actionable to the local audiences considering their social, cultural and economic circumstances.