Conclusions
infectious disease, HT
INFECTIOUS DISEASE
The source, topic, and call to action showed mixed effects on the outcomes of pandemic video communication. Comprehension and trust were positively impacted by using an expert source (ie, an infectious disease field expert), as opposed to a nonexpert source (ie, a sales consultant), and by including a call to action, irrespective of the topic. Adding a recommendation for how to behave in addition to the explicit reasons for doing so does not erode people’s trust. These findings are relevant for public health communicators and policy makers who need citizens to comprehend and trust messages conveyed to them. At the same time, the same nonvisual information factors (source, topic, and call to action) had limited or no effect on the intention to follow pandemic recommendations and behavior for the participants to this study. Further research should focus on what determines people to follow public health recommendations and behave accordingly in a time of a crisis.The COVID Communication: Fighting a Pandemic through Translating Science project has received funding from the Trond Mohn Foundation (under grant agreement number TMS2020TMT10) and the University of Stavanger. The authors acknowledge the Norwegian Air Ambulance Foundation and their members for their valuable contribution to this study.Authors' Contributions: This study was conducted by an interdisciplinary team of researchers. DAL and KKB conceived the study, discussed the methodological approach, and analyzed the data. DAL drafted the initial manuscript. All the authors (JR, SHB, IS, MTS, and HT) provided critical feedback on the manuscript and approved the final version.Conflicts of Interest: None declared.Questionnaire in English and Norwegian.CONSORT checklist.