What Comes to Mind When You Hear the Term “Pandemic Influenza”?: Results from Focus Group Research on Public Awareness and Readiness in the Event of Pandemic Influenza

Background:
Influenza pandemics have occurred every 10 to 60 years. The threat of a 21st century influenza pandemic emerged in 2003 with avian influenza. The WHO predicts that another influenza pandemic could spread rapidly with little to no preparation time. To facilitate effective pandemic planning, research is needed to identify and understand knowledge, attitudes and beliefs (KAB) about pandemic influenza in the general public.

Objectives:
Describe focus group data related to knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about pandemic influenza and pandemic preparedness.

Methods:
Residents of Chicago, Illinois (n=28) participated in 1 of 3 focus groups in August 2008 to discuss pandemic influenza and potential preparedness behavior in the event of a pandemic. Participants viewed 3 mock news video clips with varying pandemic severity and discussed KABs and potential preparedness behaviors in the event of a pandemic. Results were summarized using the constant comparison method to group responses to common questions across focus groups.

Results:
Most participants had not heard of the term “influenza pandemic”. When shown video clips with varying pandemic severity, participants reported that they would seek information about the virus from different sources during a pandemic and talk to family and friends about preventive measures. Participants worried that a pandemic could rapidly spread with little to no time for vaccine development, but wanted assurance that any newly developed vaccine would not have side effects that were worse than the disease. Participants were willing to follow directives from the government to avoid exposure to the virus. All three groups will be dicussed.

Conclusions:
Communicating consistent information to the public will be extremely important in the event of a pandemic. The public may be willing to follow specific directives from the government to avoid exposure during a pandemic. Pandemic planning includes testing survey questions to assess whether to tailor communication strategies by state or sociodemographic characteristics.