Communicating COVID-19 cases and deaths: guidelines for media

During a pandemic, people have a right to information. But constant media coverage of restrictions, illness and death is likely to have a negative impact on people's psychological wellbeing. A project funded by the Health Research Board and the Irish Research Council will assess what information should legally and ethically be communicated, and provide guidelines for communicating in this pandemic and in future healthcare crises. What is the issue? During a pandemic, people need information, but a long-term barrage of negative media reports can reduce people's psychological wellbeing. What will the research project do? The research will look at how COVID-19 cases and deaths have been communicated by media, assess what information needs to be reported and provide guidelines on how to report it without unnecessarily undermining psychological wellbeing. What will the impact be? The project will provide evidence-based guidelines for media reporting during healthcare crises, for this pandemic and beyond. Lead researcher Dr Ingrid Holme, Adjunct Research Fellow, University College Dublin School of Sociology, says: "For over nine months, there has been daily TV, newspaper and social media coverage of the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths. This information has played an important role in promoting public health measures. But it also impacts how we feel and experience our social world. Reporting of specific cases also raises ethical issues around the right to privacy. By working with the Irish Hospice Foundation, and reaching out to other industry partners, we will be able to provide supportive guidelines for different media and communication channels. This study is also a first step in the documentation of the scale and content of COVID-19 media coverage, paying particular attention to how people have responded to this media content."