How do you communicate environmental health risks to the public and stakeholders?

In my experience, define the risks or problem is very important to teach or share something for awareness or educating others. We need to explain the define the issue, causes, its impacts, solutions and suggestions in a short way. So that the audience or readers can easily understand the issue and its importance on the environment or biodiversity. The communication is very important to share information. We can post it online media, newspapers, journals or websites or as a blog. We can share this to everyone via our social accounts and professional social accounts. For this we can use data, infographic or graphs to simply the communication. This will be good forveasy learning.

Express what you want to bring out in simple terms and in a way the listener can relate. Using percentages or figures without putting them in perspective and explaining what they mean in a meaningful way can create more confusion. Illustrate the message in ways the listener can visualize your meaning.

To effectively communicate environmental health risks to the public and stakeholders, I first define the risk by identifying the source, nature, and magnitude of the hazard, along with exposure pathways and potential health effects. I consider the context and purpose of my communication, whether it aims to inform, educate, warn, or persuade. I then craft key messages that are clear, accurate, and appropriately detailed, ensuring to address uncertainties and limitations of the data. Using an appropriate tone and delivery method, I tailor the communication to the audience’s needs and levels of understanding to foster awareness and prompt informed action.

It is understood that communicating environmental health risks to the public and stakeholders is key because unless they know of the problem, they won't work towards applying the solution. However, it is important to develop a foolproof method of information dissemination and sensitization. For instance, the communication needs to be clear and to the point. These can be supported with visual aids and case studies. Lastly, open-ended programs that allow the audience room to ask questions and provide suggestions is equally helpful.

This step is also very important. Before we start teaching or sharing something for awareness. We need to understand the need of the viewers or audience. We need to prepare our tools or teaching materials based on the expectations of stakeholders or readers.

Knowing your audience is vital, but we not always get a chance to do so. Assume your audience has basic understanding of your subject, but don't assume they are all peers with similar training or experience. Present in a way that stakeholders can connect, but "general" listeners understand. Do it in a way that generates interest.

Use language your grandparents understand. Not that they are old and antiquated, they may not have the technical language fluency you or your audience have.

Use clear and simple languages is more helpful to communicate the problem easily. This will helpful for easy learning and understand the depth of the issue. They can share this knowledge to others too. One thing we need to remember, people are coming from different subjects area or less educated may difficult to understand the complex languages or terms. So that always we need to prepare the materials based on the type of viewers, readers or stakeholders in front of us who engage with our article or talks or classes.

When asked a question you don't know the answer to, don't make the answer up. Someone in the audience will know the answer and you'll loose credibility with that person and her/his peers.

Yes Environmental health issues may bring so many feelings in human mind. Sometimes people are threatened, angry, or disappointed etc. We need to respect their feelings. We need to be empathetic to interact and talk with such people. Always keep our morals and manners to interact with such people. We need patience to talk or take a class for them. We need to comfort them with ideas and solutions need to implement in such situations related to environmental issues. We need to build capacity development or confidence in stakeholders or community people to overcome the issues.

Environmental issues are all health issues in some way. Similarly, "international news" always begin as "local news". Those who carry the burden of environmental issues expect reasonable answers and ways to mitigate their damage and prevent them from happening. In the struggle against malaria, for instance, the "world" wants a World without insecticides while those carrying the yoke of malaria want a world without mosquitoes.

To communicate environmental health risks, one must define the environment. The most immediate human environment in the industrial world, today, is the urban or built environment. Spending more that 90% of our lives within the built environment means, this is our de facto living environment. Of course, the built environment is not separate from the natural environment, but by the virtue of the duration we spend in it, the built environment has a more immediate and grater direct impact on our health. Therefore, we must first pay attention to the built environment's impact on human health and optimize the architectural space to improve experience, health and wellbeing of the end users.