Setting the Terms for Zoonotic Diseases: Effective Communication for Research, Conservation, and Public Policy

Viruses

卷:13

Winifred F. Frick¹  Tigga Kingston²  Julie Teresa Shapiro³  Rebekah C. Kading⁴  Amanda Vicente-Santos⁵  Rodrigo A. Medellín⁶  Luis Víquez-R⁷  Stefania Leopardi⁸  Ian H. Mendenhall⁹  Paul Racey¹⁰ 

[1] Bat Conservation International, Austin, TX 78746, USA;

[2] Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA;

[3] Department of Life Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva 8410501, Israel;

[4] Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA;

[5] Graduate Program in Population Biology, Ecology and Evolution, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA;

[6] Institute of Ecology, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico City 04510, Mexico;

[7] Institute of Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Genomics, University of Ulm, 89069 Ulm, Germany;

[8] Laboratory of Emerging Viral Zoonoses, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, 35020 Legnaro, Italy;

[9] Programme in Emerging Infectious Diseases, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore 169857, Singapore;

[10] The Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Exeter TR10 9FE, UK;

关键词: bats;    Chiroptera;    conservation;    emerging infectious diseases;    public health;    science communication;   

DOI  :  10.3390/v13071356

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Many of the world’s most pressing issues, such as the emergence of zoonotic diseases, can only be addressed through interdisciplinary research. However, the findings of interdisciplinary research are susceptible to miscommunication among both professional and non-professional audiences due to differences in training, language, experience, and understanding. Such miscommunication contributes to the misunderstanding of key concepts or processes and hinders the development of effective research agendas and public policy. These misunderstandings can also provoke unnecessary fear in the public and have devastating effects for wildlife conservation. For example, inaccurate communication and subsequent misunderstanding of the potential associations between certain bats and zoonoses has led to persecution of diverse bats worldwide and even government calls to cull them. Here, we identify four types of miscommunication driven by the use of terminology regarding bats and the emergence of zoonotic diseases that we have categorized based on their root causes: (1) incorrect or overly broad use of terms; (2) terms that have unstable usage within a discipline, or different usages among disciplines; (3) terms that are used correctly but spark incorrect inferences about biological processes or significance in the audience; (4) incorrect inference drawn from the evidence presented. We illustrate each type of miscommunication with commonly misused or misinterpreted terms, providing a definition, caveats and common misconceptions, and suggest alternatives as appropriate. While we focus on terms specific to bats and disease ecology, we present a more general framework for addressing miscommunication that can be applied to other topics and disciplines to facilitate more effective research, problem-solving, and public policy.

【 授权许可】

Unknown