Baruch Fischhoff: The importance of testing messages

Psychologist Barry Fischhoff, an authority on the science of decision-making, explains the importance of testing COVID-19 messages before releasing them to the public. Fischhoff highlights the need for public health communicators to first listen to the public to understand how the audience thinks about new issues and then draft a message and present it to a diverse group of people for comment. Fischhoff explains that research on risk communication shows that clearly presented quantitative information can avoid the confusion created by vague words, such as “likely,” “rare,” and “possible.”