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# Public Health Communication During COVID-19

MD (Doctor of Medicine), Hull York Medical School, 2025

The shift from a deferrer society to a referrer society in how people seek and verify health knowledge.

### In plain English

Fifteen months into the pandemic, I interviewed 40 people, 20 healthcare professionals and 20 members of the public, and analysed their accounts using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The key finding: COVID-19 completed a shift from a 'deferrer society' to a 'referrer society'. People no longer simply accept what authority tells them; they check, compare, and increasingly ask an AI.

My grandfather's generation deferred to the doctor. Ours refers: to search engines, to each other, and now to language models. Health communication that assumes deference is speaking to a society that no longer exists.

### The AI behind the analysis

The analysis was AI-assisted, and I am precise about which AI. As executed, it ran on GPT-3 and GPT-4. Mid-doctorate, in August 2023, I benchmarked Claude against them on 370,000 words of interview transcripts and found Claude superior for nuanced qualitative analysis.

### Abstract & Supervisors

**Background**

The COVID-19 pandemic marked the first global health crisis to unfold in a highly connected digital media environment. Understanding how social and mainstream media shaped public health communication during this period is crucial for improving future pandemic responses. Early pandemic communication was complicated by rapid information spread through social media, which often outpaced official channels and created challenges for effective public health messaging.

**Research question**

How did social and mainstream media shape public perceptions and responses during the COVID-19 pandemic, and what were the lived experiences and understandings among both healthcare professionals and members of the public regarding social and mainstream media broadcasting months into the pandemic?

**Literature**

A narrative review explored three key areas: the evolution of media technologies and landscapes, communication strategies from past pandemics, and expert perspectives on initial COVID-19 coverage. The review highlighted the unprecedented nature of pandemic communication in an environment where social media enabled instant global information sharing while also facilitating the spread of misinformation.

**Methods**

The study employed Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) methodology to examine the lived experiences of 40 participants (20 healthcare professionals and 20 members of the public) through in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted 15 months into the pandemic. Analysis was enhanced through innovative use of AI-assisted tools while maintaining IPA's idiographic focus.

**Results**

Analysis revealed distinct Group Experiential Themes (GETs) for healthcare professionals and the public. Healthcare professionals demonstrated more sophisticated information evaluation strategies but struggled with bridging professional knowledge and public understanding. The public showed greater vulnerability to misinformation but developed increasingly critical approaches to media consumption over time. Both groups experienced evolution in their trust of different information sources throughout the pandemic.

**Discussion**

The findings highlighted how modern media environments complicate traditional public health communication approaches. The research identified crucial differences in how healthcare professionals and the public processed pandemic information, while also revealing shared challenges in navigating the complex media landscape. The study extends understanding of how social media platforms can both enhance and hinder effective health communication during crises.

**Conclusions**

The research demonstrates a fundamental shift from a 'deferrer society' to a 'referrer society' in public health communication, necessitating new approaches to crisis communication that can harness social media's speed and reach while maintaining message integrity. Findings suggest future pandemic responses must balance traditional authority with new forms of collaborative knowledge creation, while supporting both healthcare professionals and the public in navigating complex information landscapes.

Supervisors: [Prof Martin Veysey](https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-veysey-31885060/), [Prof Gabrielle Finn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabrielle-finn-21a04030/), [Dr Paul Crampton](https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-crampton-71ba0836b/)