Global Health Histories 106 - 'Strategies of Anti-Panic: A New Approach to Epidemic Panic'

Date: 18 May 2018
Time: 2:30 - 4:30pm
Venue: Room A2-08 (MTC), 2/F William M.W. Mong Block, Faculty of Medicine Building, The University of Hong Kong, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong

Speakers: Keiji Fukuda (Director, School of Public Health, University of Hong Kong), Robert Peckham (Director, Centre for the Humanities and Medicine, University of Hong Kong), Kirsten Ostherr (Director, Medical Futures Lab, Rice University)

 seminar posterAbout:
Health panics are nothing new, but the rise of mass communications and the increasing dominance of the mass media in everyday life has potentially harmful consequences during disease outbreaks. Techniques to combat health panics receive high attention by governments and international organizations, but public anxiety can endure even when knowledge and information about an outbreak is readily available and reassuring. Panics can result in harmful and erroneous rumours, extreme behaviours such as fear and avoidance of public spaces, loss of trust in public health officials, and stigmatization of sufferers. In this seminar, our expert panel will draw on examples from the recent past to explore strategies of anti-panic and new approaches to rumour control. This will be followed by a panel discussion.

All welcome. Enquiries: contact_chm@hku.hk

Registration: http://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?guest=Y&ueid=55500

This event is co-organized with the WHO Collaborating Centre for Global Health Histories at the University of York, and the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong.