Investigation report on China's health emergency popularisation of science about the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic is a huge challenge to world health systems. The harm of public panic is more serious than that of the virus infection. Public panic will create a lot of rumours;Rumours will not only hinder the government's handling of public health emergencies, but also disrupt the public's awareness and behaviour of preventing viruses and cause social unrest. Purpose(s) In order to investigate the demand of the ordinary personnel and health professionals for emergency popularisation of science, discover the current problems in popular science work during public health emergencies, and provided suggestions for future health popular science work. Method(s) This study designed two versions of the health emergency science questionnaire, which are divided into ordinary personnel version and health professional version. From 21st February to 10th March 2020, the authors received questionnaires from 25,935 ordinary personnel and 30,143 professionals from all provinces of China. Result(s) The public has a high demand for health emergency popularisation of science about COVID-19, and the professional demand is higher than the ordinary personnel. Ordinary personnel's evaluation of the role of health emergency popular science in COVID-19 pandemic is 8.58+/-1.80 points (out of ten points), and the professional's evaluation is 8.93+/-1.44 points. Conclusion(s) Ordinary personnel and professionals have highly evaluated the role of health emergency popular science during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mobile Internet is currently the main channel for the public to obtain emergency popular science information, but due to rumours, the public's trust in mobile Internet is low.