Conference Agenda (All times are shown in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) unless otherwise noted)

In response to the global disaster of COVID-19, every country has implemented various policies. China, as a developing country, has issued policies to combat COVID-19 that could serve as a reference for future pandemic prevention and control efforts, and may offer lessons for national governance. This paper employs bibliometric methods, text mining, and network analysis to mine and characterize the evolution of China's policies against COVID-19. Specifically, we extract policy targets and identify the policy tools from each policy, cross-compare the policy tools used for different policy targets, and characterize their evolution during the pandemic. Our findings show that policy targets have shifted over different stages to balance epidemic prevention with economic development. We also identify several shortcomings in distribution and utilization of policy tools. To improve policy implementation, it is crucial to align policy targets with appropriate policy tools and ensure a balanced and functional approach to policy implementation.

The outbreak of COVID-19 posed one of the most serious threats to humanity in recent times. The rapid transmission of this virus across the globe and presence of various information imperfections (e.g., absence of information, confusing information, misinformation) made the craft of developing an effective information policy during this pandemic extremely difficult. This study has analyzed the COVID-19 information environment of Australia with an aim to understand the important features of the information flow which, in part, helped Australia to achieve one of the lowest COVID-19 test positivity rates. The findings of this study carry important implications for the design of future information policy imperatives aiming to deal with pandemics, natural catastrophes, and human-made disasters.

Many Black Americans expressed skepticism and hesitancy about the Covid-19 vaccine. The objective of this research is to examine whether there is a relationship between Covid-19 vaccine status, Covid-19 vaccine knowledge, and information seeking about the coronavirus. A national online questionnaire of 222 Black identified individuals completed the instrument in the Summer of 2021. We conducted data analysis using ANOVA and nonparametric correlation tests among the variables. Findings show that individuals who have received the COVID-19 vaccine exhibited greater COVID-19 vaccine-related knowledge compared to people who declined the vaccine, or were hesitant adopters. There is no significant difference in the level of knowledge between those who are hesitant about the vaccine and those who declined it. Finally, there is a moderate positive correlation between COVID-19 vaccine knowledge and engagement in COVID-19-related information seeking. We conclude with strategies to improve the Black American health information environment by way of practice, policy, and action.

This paper details the findings from a study investigating the efficacy of community-based and -organized information sessions for dispelling public health misinformation around COVID-19. The authors used community-engaged participatory action research methods to co-organize town halls with community members, groups, and officials to disseminate COVID information for two New Jersey towns and townships with differing demographic compositions in late 2020 through 2021. These sessions aimed to share reliable, trustworthy public health and safety information around the COVID-19 pandemic. This small-scale, qualitative study suggests that this type of hyper-localized information session where residents can interact with local leaders and talk openly about local problems around public health can be a point of connection for people with their community, that helps them access and address localized public health problems in myriad ways. In so doing, this study suggests ways to re-imagine public health information and communication practices to promote informational justice.