Using Social Media to Communicate about Mosquito Control

Prevent & Protect Series Overview

The Prevent & Protect publication series focuses on creating different material formats to resonate with various audiences and on maximizing the efficacy of communicating with the public about mosquito-related risks and mosquito control topics. The UF/IFAS Center for Public Issues Education in Agriculture and Natural Resources (PIE Center) created the Prevent & Protect project to educate local elected and appointed officials and targeted audiences about mosquito control in a simplified, understandable format to increase public understanding of scientific information on the topic. An overview of the Prevent & Protect project is available in the Ask IFAS publication Public Perceptions of Mosquitoes and Mosquito Control (https://ask.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/WC357). This document explains how to effectively use social media to communicate in an emergency situation, specifically related to mosquito control. This publication also provides details on integrating the Prevent & Protect emergency toolkit into a mosquito-related emergency situation.

Mosquito Risks

Beyond being a nuisance, mosquitoes pose a significant risk to community health as transmitters of disease. Mosquitoes and other vectors, such as ticks, cause almost 700,000 deaths worldwide each year, making mosquitoes the most common disease vectors (World Health Organization [WHO], 2017). Various mosquito species can infect people with a range of diseases, including Zika virus, West Nile, Chikungunya, dengue, and malaria (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). Risk communication regarding mosquitoes is important year-round, but especially during emergencies, such as disease outbreaks or natural disasters, when standing water increases breeding grounds.

There are several reasons an organization should be prepared to communicate about mosquitoes and mosquito control in an emergency. People are at risk of mosquito bites in these emergency situations. It is also the time when people are more likely to actively seek information about mosquitoes and mosquito control. Your communications goal may be to raise awareness of the dangers posed by increased mosquito populations and the benefits of mosquito control, particularly in emergency situations, without causing unnecessary panic.

As part of the 2019 Prevent & Protect project, 500 Floridians answered an online survey regarding their opinions on and knowledge of mosquitoes and mosquito control. Similar questions were also asked of participants in eight focus groups held in four locations across the state. Overall, survey respondents were not very concerned about mosquito control, had not really thought about it, and had not actively researched information on mosquito control in their communities. When further discussing diseases that mosquitoes carry, several participants in each focus group expressed interest and concern that mosquito activity and mosquito control would intensify if there were a disease outbreak in their community or if they knew someone had contracted a disease from a mosquito. Through further prompts in the focus groups, participants indicated that an outbreak in their communities would spur them to seek out further information as well. These results are similar to the findings from the general public survey, where, on average, Florida residents agreed most that controlling the mosquito populations in Florida is important because it protects Florida residents from mosquito-borne illnesses.

Putting Together a Social Media Plan to Communicate about Risk

In regard to mosquitoes and mosquito control, it is best to have a communications plan with two components: (1) a general plan that you can use to help the public understand the issues associated with a certain risk year-round (risk communication) and (2) a plan that can be rolled out in times of crisis (crisis communication). Risk communication deals with issues that have the potential to cause harm. In the case of mosquitoes, it is important to communicate how mosquito control reduces the risk of damaging effects of mosquitoes year-round. Crisis communication deals with things that have gone wrong. In an emergency or crisis situation, such as a disease outbreak or the aftermath of a natural disaster, an organization's communications will be dealing with issues that have already gone wrong and are actively causing harm or increasing the risk to the community's well-being. More information on the differences between risk and crisis can be found in the Ask IFAS publication Risk and Crisis Communication: When Things Go Wrong (https://ask.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/WC093).

In the case of the Prevent & Protect project, the four mosquito-related issues chosen to focus on year-round in the "general plan" (risk communication), based on survey and focus group results, were (1) personal responsibility and at-home mosquito control methods, (2) mosquito-borne illnesses, (3) the impact of mosquitoes as a nuisance and on the economy, and (4) different application methods utilized by mosquito control professionals. The plan for each topic includes a week's worth of social media posts with graphics and suggested text. These plans are all available for free to download and use at https://preventmosquitoes.org/mosquito-control-toolkit/.

When using social media to communicate about risk, follow these suggestions:

• Keep your posts brief. Some social media platforms will limit posts to a maximum number of characters. Even on platforms without such restraints, if a post is too long, your audience will lose interest and either skim or skip over it altogether.
• Include a graphic. People are more likely to stop and engage with a post that includes a graphic than one that includes only text.
• Use hashtags strategically. When used correctly, hashtags can connect your post to a larger audience of people searching for information on the same subject. However, it is important to consider the platform you are using, the relevance of the hashtags, and the amount.
• Include a call to action. Effective posts will give your audience a specific direction to take. Some examples of common calls to action include directing them to follow you on social media, to follow a link to read an article for additional information, or in the case of risk communications, to take a simple action to reduce personal risk, such as turning over containers that could hold water and be a habitat for mosquito development.

Consider the culture of your target audience. For example, when creating the outreach materials and social media posts on aerial application for mosquito control, a football field was used to demonstrate the size of the area in the English version, but a soccer field was used for the Spanish and Haitian Creole versions of the materials because the audience is more familiar with soccer (fútbol) than American football (see Figure 1).

Putting Together a Social Media Plan to Communicate about a Crisis

If you are part of an organization that communicates about mosquitoes, mosquito control, public health, or general community concerns, it is important to have an established plan for how you will communicate about mosquitoes in an emergency. This plan should differ from general risk communications by creating a stronger sense of urgency and focusing on immediate actions individuals can take to protect themselves and those around them. One reason social media is an effective tool for communicating in a crisis is that people may not have the time or ability to research and read longer publications or sift through an organization's website to find the information they need.

To help organizations that may need to communicate about mosquito control in emergency situations, Prevent & Protect created two emergency-related social media plans: one to be used following a natural disaster, and the other to be implemented during a disease outbreak. Each plan (disease and natural disaster) includes a schedule of five social media posts and accompanying graphics. Each post can be edited to include a county logo. The social media plans are available for download at https://preventmosquitoes.org/emergency-response-toolkit/.

In the remainder of this section, suggestions on communications in an emergency situation will be illustrated with examples from the Prevent & Protect emergency toolkit:

• Convey a greater sense of urgency. The goal is no longer to increase the public's general knowledge or awareness of the issue and overall risk mitigation efforts. The threat is now specific and needs to be addressed quickly and efficiently. This post from the natural disaster emergency toolkit concisely explains why increased mosquito control efforts are now necessary and provides the public with an actionable way to protect themselves (see Figure 2).

• Don't cause panic. While it is important that the public takes the issue seriously, do not communicate in a way that causes panic. Stick to the facts and avoid misinformation or sensationalism. The following post from the Prevent & Protect emergency toolkit presents the facts in an easy-to-understand way, conveying important information about the range of diseases mosquitoes can carry, without resorting to fear tactics (see Figure 3).

• Don't let the risk remain abstract. By connecting the risk of mosquitoes to specific, concrete concerns people may have, such as economic, community health, or quality-of-life costs, a communications plan will draw their interest more effectively. This post, taken from the Prevent & Protect emergency toolkit for disease outbreak, emphasizes both the health costs of a disease and the economic costs of treating it (see Figure 4).

• Provide usable solutions. It is not enough to make the public aware of the issue. Provide manageable steps people can take on their own to reduce the risk of mosquito-borne diseases and protect themselves and those around them. In the case of mosquitoes, this can mean wearing repellent and long-sleeved shirts and pants, staying indoors, or dumping out any standing water. The graphic used previously in Figure 2 suggests wearing protective clothing, such as long sleeves and pants.
• Monitor for feedback and engage with stakeholders. One goal of your social media campaign should be to reach stakeholders. Stakeholders are those invested in the issue you are communicating about, including public officials and individuals in impacted communities. Those effectively reached by your emergency communications may have follow-up questions. It is important to engage with them and provide any relevant answers available within the organization, or, if that information is not readily available, direct them to other sources. This engagement helps establish trust in an organization as an information source to seek out in the future. One good way to make this information readily available is through a "Frequently Asked Questions" document or webpage, such as the one seen on the Prevent & Protect website (https://preventmosquitoes.org/emergency-response-toolkit/faqs/).

Summary

When used properly, social media can be an effective tool for communicating risk and crisis. Specifically, social media use can be crucial when discussing topics the public is not actively seeking out information on, such as mosquito control. It can also be useful in times of crisis, when community members may not have time to search lengthy publications for the information they require.

Additional Information

Prevent & Protect—https://preventmosquitoes.org

World Health Organization. (2017). Vector-borne diseases. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/vector-borne-diseases

Prevent & Protect: Mosquito Control Messages for Your Community is supported by the Smith-Lever Special Needs Competitive Grant Program (grant award no. 2016-41210-25622) from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this work are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the US Department of Agriculture. This work is also supported by a grant from the Florida Department of Health. Special thanks to the following organizations for their assistance in developing the content for this project: Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Southeastern Center of Excellence in Vector Borne Diseases, and the UF/IFAS Entomology and Nematology Department.