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Johannes Brug, director of the EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam and colleagues wrote in a special editorial in the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine said that there are three key parameters that convince people to take precautions against a pandemic.

"Firstly, they need to be aware of the risk to them. Secondly, they need to believe that effective protective actions are available and have confidence in them", the authors said in a statement. "Lastly, communications about risk need to be carefully managed so that they express the actual risk accurately to prevent mass scares."

The authors review the importance of risk perception and show that for people to voluntarily take precautionary actions, it is essential that they are aware of and understand the risk.

"Risk communication messages that are not comprehended by the public at risk, or communication of conflicting risk messages will result in lack of precautionary actions, as will communications from a non-trustworthy source", the researchers wrote.

"However, risk communication messages are sometimes very quickly adopted by the media, possibly leading to an 'amplification' of risk information that may lead to unnecessary mass scares and unnecessary or ineffective precautionary action."

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