Source: CDC, 7/9/20


In the face of an infectious disease outbreak without a vaccine or known treatment, communicating prevention messages is critical to slowing the spread of the pandemic.

Recommended protective measures like social distancing, cloth face coverings, and frequent handwashing are the same for everyone. But some people face more barriers when it comes to taking these actions, and some are harder to reach with messaging.

In late April, as New York and other major cities faced devastating surges of COVID-19 cases, millions stayed in their homes and left only for necessary items like medicine and food. But the pandemic also reached beyond the cities, to the small rural towns where much of that food gets packaged. Meat and poultry plant workers continued to go into work, where social distancing was a challenge. Outbreaks in meat and poultry plants could affect entire towns. And some of these towns are in areas where healthcare services and testing are hard to access.

Maggie Silver, a health communication specialist at CDC’s office in Fort Collins, Colorado, recalls seeing an uptick in cases among workers at a leading beef processing plant in nearby Weld County. The plant closed for 10 days to put a hold on the spread of COVID-19 in the facility and to come up with a strategy to reopen and stay open, as the federal government announced that the food production industry was an essential service.

Maggie’s co-worker in Fort Collins, Dr. Marc Fischer, was dispatched to work with the plant’s management, the county health department, and the workers’ union to develop a mitigation strategy. The team quickly recognized that containing the outbreak would depend on effective communication with employees, the community, and partners. That’s when Marc called on Maggie to develop a risk communication plan.

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