from the editor
Lack of Pandemic Preparedness Didn ’ t Stop With the Healthcare Sector
It turns out that the general public was caught off guard as well .
More than 95 percent of healthy , educated adults surveyed by University of Houston ( UH ) researchers in the early stages of the pandemic reported they did not have a comprehensive plan in mind if they were infected by SARS-CoV-2 , while 62 percent didn ’ t have a plan at all .
“ What that suggests is that it was difficult even for very high-functioning people to
With experts warning that
COVID-19 variants as well as new emerging infectious threats continuing to threaten public health , it ’ s time to get serious about education and training for healthcare personnel . digest and use all the complex information that was quickly emerging about COVID . They were largely unprepared and unsure how to proceed ,” says Steven Woods , UH psychology professor and corresponding author of the study published in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology .
As we know , the World Health Organization declared
•
COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11 , 2020 . Woods and Michelle A . Babicz , first author and UH clinical psychology doctoral student , spoke to 217 participants by phone between April 23 and May 21 , 2020 . Survey participants completed standard measures of neurocognition , health literacy , intelligence , personality and anxiety , while also answering questions about their COVID-19 information seeking skills , knowledge and adherence to recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , such as wearing masks and social distancing .
“ The surprising outcome confirms the importance of building basic health literacy skills , because people ’ s ability to understand
numbers and medical terms was associated with how effectively they looked for credible COVID-19 information on the Internet , how much they learned about COVID-19 , and how they used that information to keep themselves and others safe ,” adds Woods .
“ The findings may also help with the development and targeting of information campaigns as new public health crises inevitably emerge ,” Babicz says . “ We suggest these campaigns use language and constructs that are accessible to persons with low levels of health literacy , perhaps through community-based participatory research approaches .”
I would suggest that schools and institutions of higher learning drop the political indoctrination and start educating students around real issues of importance and impact for public health , such as understanding germ theory , caring about hygiene , and respecting themselves and others enough to seek real , science-driven information , not talking heads ’ empty opinions .
With disappointingly low health literacy rates in the general public and the ongoing challenges of healthcare worker compliance with infection prevention and control , it feels like an impossible tide to turn . With experts warning that COVID-19 variants as well as new emerging infectious threats continuing to threaten public health , it ’ s time to get serious about education and training for healthcare personnel as well as consumers . Will people wise up after surviving this pandemic ? Even with all of the discussion of lessons learned , and human nature being what it is , a newfound commitment to preparedness could be short-lived . We look to infection preventionists to help lead the charge into a new era of understanding .
Until next month , bust those bugs ! Kelly M . Pyrek Editor & Publisher kelly @ healthcarehygienemagazine . com healthcarehygienemagazine
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