One Health in the Virtual Park: Increasing Knowledge and Awareness of the Public on Health Issues

Misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda have spread from several sources of media and rapidly shared on social networks. This phenomena exacerbates the COVID-19 situation and may cause difficulties in the COVID-19 management and harm to public security. Thailand One Health University Network (THOHUN) initiated “One Health in the Park” to increase One Health (OH) knowledge through risk communication events for the public and to develop the visibility of OH and THOHUN to Thai society.

This monthly activity takes the form of a talk show or a debate of multi-disciplinary experts, influencers, and stakeholders on COVID-19 and other interested public health parties in Thai society. These events will usually be organized in open-air spaces or parks. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the format was completely transformed to be live-stream broadcasted through social media, THOHUN, and partner’s websites. Question and answer sessions were provided and became an effective way of encouraging interaction between the speakers and the audience whenever clarifications were needed. After the events, the presentations were edited to highlight the information presented during the event and to communicate with a specific audience, through the THOHUN’s Facebook fan page, Perceptia blog, and online news agencies. Publication of the post-event articles is not only a mechanism to advocate for THOHUN’s activities but also intends to inspire people who could not attend the event and motivate them to participate in the future.

The topic for the kickoff event in July 2021 was “Ideal COVID-19 vaccines and the vaccines that are suitable for Thailand’s context,” which, for obvious reasons, is of current interest for the public. Through this topic, THOHUN gathered a total of 8,233 views and 160 persons connected simultaneously during the peak live viewers.

THOHUN looks forward to more people attending the live events in the future and accessing the recorded Facebook live video posted at the THOHUN’s Facebook fanpage:

https://www.facebook.com/NCOTHOHUN Responses and feedback of this first event were beyond THOHUN’s expectations with very positive comments from the participants and viewers. This initial event will be an effective platform for the reciprocal communication and engagement of THOHUN, health care providers, and public health administrators with the public regarding emerging infectious diseases