Talk to the Public Like You Would Talk to a Patient

To combat the coronavirus pandemic, Americans have been told to “stay home to save lives.” They’ve been counseled to stay six feet apart from others and avoid gatherings.  They have been advised to get vaccinated because it’s “the unvaccinated” who are to blame for driving the pandemic and stressing health-care systems. Yes, some Americans are heeding this advice, but over time, this absolutist and judgmental approach has contributed to eroding trust in public-health institutions. It has also put local public-health practitioners and individual clinicians counseling patients in the challenging position of translating these messages into real-life recommendations.

The most effective should embody the qualities that primary-care pediatricians like me strive to emphasize daily: empathy and nuance. We start by trying to understand families’ priorities about their children’s health and well-being. We