When WHO, CDC, and ECDC responded to the Andes virus outbreak on the MV Hondius, none of their official documents mentioned Covid-19 once. Yet every framing choice was built around preventing that comparison. A look at what institutional risk communication looks like five years after the pandemic that nobody wants to name again.
In the early 1990s, while living in Tanzania, I sometimes carried vaccine vials for my infant daughter inside a thermos packed with ice, navigating a healthcare system where having a hospital nearby did not always mean having access. Years later, that experience still shapes how I think about global health communication: because before people trust the science, they often need to trust the system, the messenger… and the reality behind the message.
Risk is not a single concept, and it does not travel in a single language. How we talk about it depends on our disciplinary background as much as on our audience — and many communication gaps start long before we begin to adapt our message.
A belt in a shop. A lost look from an 18-year-old assistant. And a realization: we don’t just speak different languages — we think through different operating systems. From Boomers to Gen Alpha, this article explores how internet generations shape the way we search, trust, and understand information — and why simple words are not always enough.
Risk is not a single concept, and it does not travel in a single language. How we talk about it depends on our disciplinary background as much as on our audience — and many communication gaps start long before we begin to adapt our message.
This isn’t a manual. It’s a reminder: colour is never just colour.
It’s culture, power, habits, identity — basically, us. This book comes from serious research and takes a very unserious route.
Read it if you like learning whilela ughing and feeling just a little bit uncomfortable.
Marketing can create needs, and that phrase makes scientists understandably nervous. In science communication, the ethical version of “creating need” is not inventing urgency—it’s revealing relevance.