Health Communication Specialist
CDC
United States
Dr. Laura Pechta is a Health Communication Specialist in the Division of Emergency Operations at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Laura has worked fourteen CDC emergency responses, including Ebola, Zika, and recent hurricane seasons. During responses, she conducts real-time communication surveillance of news and social media and provides research and evaluation assistance such as message testing. Laura leads $1.2 million multi-year research projects in coordination with academic and research organizations on improving emergency risk communication messages and processes. She has published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Risk Analysis, and Health Security, and presented at several conferences.
How is Emergency Risk Communication Measured? Using an Expert Panel to Validate Instruments
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the RAND Corporation are working together to develop instruments to measure the impact of emergency risk communication. This session discusses the first step in instrument validation: establishing consensus from an expert panel on proposed constructs and measures using the Delphi method.