On the Ground in Post-Earthquake Haiti: Lessons in Communication Response From the Emergency Risk Communication Branch, Division of Emergency Operations, Centers for Disease Control

Background: Health communicators faced unprecedented challenges in post-earthquake Haiti. Even before the earthquake, Haiti was the most impoverished nation in the Western hemisphere, with one of the least -developed communication infrastructures in the region and some of the worst health indicators in the world, according to the WHO. In the devastating aftermath of the quake, more than 250-thousand people were dead, millions were left homeless, and the national infrastructure was destroyed. This mass-casualty situation was complicated by the fact that the US incident response efforts were taking place in a sovereign nation with a unique national culture and indigenous language.

Program background: Under these conditions, the command-and-control approach to communications advocated by the United States' national response model, the National Incident Management System (NIMS) was found to have several areas of weakness. Health communicators in the United States and on the ground in Haiti were forced to create a new paradigm for  communicating with mass audiences in the absence of electronic mass media.  

Evaluation Methods and Results: This presentation will outline lessons learned by the CDC's Department of Emergency Operations Emergency Risk Communication Branch during the response to the Haiti earthquake, while also referencing the communication response to a domestic mass casualty event -- Hurricane Katrina.   Learning Objectives: Participants will understand the premises of a new paradigm for health communications and be able to develop their own objectives and strategies using guidelines developed during and after the Haiti response. Among the strategies discussed will be phased communication, the use of social media, and "hands-on" approaches for reaching specific audiences in the absence of a traditional communications infrastructure.  

Conclusions: When the entire communications infrastructure has been destroyed, communicators tasked with responding to a disaster must find new ways to reach target audiences. This requires a more interactive approach to the process which incorporates a less linear mode of thinking and methods which include social media and other more "hands on" strategies.     

Implications for research and/or practice: Professional health communicators may find this new paradigm useful not only for developing objectives and strategies in a disaster response, but also for reaching specific target audiences under normal business conditions.