Abstract
BackgroundThe first cases of influenza A/H1N1 (swine flu) were confirmed in the UK on 27th April 2009, after a novel virus first identified in Mexico rapidly evolved into a pandemic. The swine flu outbreak was the first pandemic in more than 40 years and for many, their first encounter with a major influenza outbreak. This study examines public understandings of the pandemic, exploring how people deciphered the threat and perceived they could control the risks.MethodsPurposive sampling was used to recruit seventy three people (61 women and 12 men) to take part in 14 focus group discussions around the time of the second wave in swine flu cases.ResultsThese discussions showed that there was little evidence of the public over-reacting, that people believed the threat of contracting swine flu was inevitable, and that they assessed their own self-efficacy for protecting against it to be low. Respondents assessed a greater risk to their health from the vaccine than from the disease. Such findings could have led to apathy about following the UK Governments recommended health protective behaviours, and a sub-optimal level of vaccine uptake. More generally, people were confused about the difference between seasonal influenza and swine flu and their vaccines.ConclusionsThis research suggests a gap in public understandings which could hinder attempts to communicate about novel flu viruses in the future. There was general support for the government's handling of the pandemic, although its public awareness campaign was deemed ineffectual as few people changed their current hand hygiene practices. There was less support for the media who were deemed to have over-reported the swine flu pandemic.
Highlights
On 27th April 2009 cases of influenza A/H1N1 were confirmed in the United Kingdom (UK) after a novel virus first identified in Mexico rapidly evolved into a pandemic [1]
Participants reported images of ‘Mexico’, ‘pigs’, the man who was depicted sneezing in the Department of Health (DoH) swine flu public awareness campaign and people wearing ‘face masks’
Some participants mentioned more dramatic images including: ‘chaos’, ‘death’, ‘borders and airports closing’ and ‘people being quarantined’. Many of these images appeared to have come directly from the media and it was common for participants to state that they had seen these images on the television, or in newspapers
Summary
The first cases of influenza A/H1N1 (swine flu) were confirmed in the UK on 27th April 2009, after a novel virus first identified in Mexico rapidly evolved into a pandemic. On 27th April 2009 cases of influenza A/H1N1 (swine flu) were confirmed in the United Kingdom (UK) after a novel virus first identified in Mexico rapidly evolved into a pandemic [1]. The World Health Organisation (WHO), sensitised to the possibility of a serious pandemic influenza outbreak following recent outbreaks of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and influenza H5N1 (avian flu), had encouraged governments to coordinate a strategic public health response for dealing with such an event [3]. In the spring of 2009, as part of the UK government’s pandemic response, a public awareness campaign was launched to slow the potential spread of swine flu by encouraging people to adopt protective health behaviours such as hand washing and using tissues. Predictions of between 5% and 30% of the UK population contracting the virus and up to 65,000 deaths captured media attention [6]
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