Media Alert: Expert Available to Comment on the Importance of Flu Vaccine Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — As flu season approaches amid the COVID-19 pandemic, now is the time to get the message out to Americans that getting a flu vaccine is crucial. This fall, flu vaccines will have heightened importance as preventing seasonal flu could help mitigate strain on a health care system already overburdened by the pandemic.

Brian Southwell, Ph.D., an expert in communication and human behavior and a researcher at RTI International, a nonprofit research institute, is available for interviews to discuss efforts to promote the flu vaccine this year. As institutions seek to increase seasonal flu vaccinations to eliminate the flu from the public health equation during the COVID-19 pandemic, they face challenges in terms of misconceptions and human dynamics.

Dr. Southwell is an expert in misinformation research and public understanding of health and science. His work in this area includes a recent book and numerous studies on misinformation, including how it spreads and how to best to counter it, as well as perceptions of other emerging infectious diseases such as Zika virus disease, avian influenza, and Ebola virus disease.

To request an interview, contact news@rti.org.

To access more RTI research about global health, visit www.rti.org and follow RTI on Twitter @RTI_Intl.