Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 May;39(5):355-357.
doi: 10.1037/hea0000875. Epub 2020 Mar 23.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-2019) outbreak: Amplification of public health consequences by media exposure

Dana Rose Garfin  1 , Roxane Cohen Silver  2 , E Alison Holman  1
Affiliations

The novel coronavirus (COVID-2019) outbreak: Amplification of public health consequences by media exposure

Dana Rose Garfin et al. Health Psychol. 2020 May.

Abstract

The 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-2019) has led to a serious outbreak of often severe respiratory disease, which originated in China and has quickly become a global pandemic, with far-reaching consequences that are unprecedented in the modern era. As public health officials seek to contain the virus and mitigate the deleterious effects on worldwide population health, a related threat has emerged: global media exposure to the crisis. We review research suggesting that repeated media exposure to community crisis can lead to increased anxiety, heightened stress responses that can lead to downstream effects on health, and misplaced health-protective and help-seeking behaviors that can overburden health care facilities and tax available resources. We draw from work on previous public health crises (i.e., Ebola and H1N1 outbreaks) and other collective trauma (e.g., terrorist attacks) where media coverage of events had unintended consequences for those at relatively low risk for direct exposure, leading to potentially severe public health repercussions. We conclude with recommendations for individuals, researchers, and public health officials with respect to receiving and providing effective communications during a public health crisis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

PubMed Disclaimer

Comment in

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Ball-Rokeach SJ, & DeFleur ML (1976). A dependency model of mass-media effects. Communication Research, 3(1), 3–21. 10.1177/009365027600300101 - DOI
    1. Beatty TK, Shimshack JP, & Volpe RJ (2019). Disaster prepared-ness and disaster response: Evidence from sales of emergency supplies before and after hurricanes. Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 6, 633–668. 10.2139/ssrn.3208765 - DOI
    1. Coronavirus: Demand for face masks creates shortfall for those in real need. (2020, February 7). U.N. News; Retrieved from https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/02/1056942
    1. Fischhoff B, Wong-Parodi G, Garfin DR, Holman EA, & Silver RC (2018). Public understanding of Ebola risks: Mastering an unfamiliar threat. Risk Analysis: An International Journal, 38, 71–83 (published ahead of print June 8, 2017). DOI: 10.1111/risa.12794 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Garfin DR, Holman EA, & Silver RC (2015). Cumulative exposure to prior collective trauma and acute stress responses to the Boston Marathon bombings. Psychological Science, 26, 675–683. doi:10.1177/0956797614561043 - DOI - PubMed