This article was published in Public Health Reports, this is the official journal of the US public Health Service and Surgeon General of the United States. Topics and issues of public health law, public health practice and research as well as schools and teaching are published in this journal. Overall, this journal is highly regarded. It is peer reviewed and publishes original work. Being the official journal of US departments reflects its validity.
The funding for this study came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), grant number #5PO1TP000307-05.
The purpose of this study is to look at the effect of social and economic factors, status and health comunication behaviors on people's knowledge about the flu pandemic and prevention efforts. In the past it has been reflected in studies that people in different social groups have a far different access to information form each other about health and specific threats of diseases, which in effect may alter their behavior and knowledge on the topic. This study looks to see if these inequalities lead to a compromised adversity in these vulnerable populations when it comes to responses to the flu outbreak.
Through the use of surveying, this study identified that there are in fact inequalities in people's understanding of proper responses to pandemic influenza outbreaks. This study helped identify these vulnerable groups, and that social media and forms of mass media are the main ways to reach these groups. To address this vulnerable population, the public needs an increased accessibility to information, overall increasing the public's level of knowledge about the pandemic.
Professionals can use this data to better equip themselves with the knowledge of weaknesses of the masses, in terms of what they know or don't know and what they perceive about the Influenza epidemic. Professionals can better identify where most people receive their data from and where they are most likely to get their information from. This will allow professionals to better identify vulnerable groups and better prepare those areas and groups, sculpting educational programs and informational/educational forums and outlets to them, with the hopes of increasing public health efforts.
This paper has been cited and discussed in 7 different articles according to Google Scholar. Many of the papers it has been cited in have to do with the effects of social media on opinions of opioid use, gun violence, vaccination rates and more. The papers all have to do with public perception and education on certain topics, very similar to this study.
The methods utilized in this paper are not necessarily new or inventive, yet this doesn't detract from its effectiveness. The data used for this study was collected from surveys of 1,569 people and the data was then analyzed using statistical methods of logistic regression.