NZ communicated well on COVID-19 testing, finds experiment

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-05-25 07:49

New Zealand; International

New Zealand Ministry of Health messaging around how to interpret COVID-19 test results was far more effective than the UK and US, according to a first-of-its-kind online experiment. The New Zealand information was the only one that influenced people, correctly, to believe that a symptomatic person with a negative test result should remain self-isolating until they are symptom-free. The authors suggest other countries could adopt wording similar to that used by our Ministry of Health, and highlight the important advice that people with symptoms should continue to self-isolate after a single negative test result.

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Research The BMJ, Web page

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conference: BMJ Open

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Organisation/s: University of Cambridge, UK

Funder: Funding was provided by the Winton Centre for Risk & Evidence Communication, which is funded from a donation from the David & Claudia Harding Foundation. The foundation played no role in the study. Competing interests: None declared.

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