Communicating health

As the UK grapples with the resurgence of whooping cough, it becomes increasingly important for public health messaging to adopt a nuanced and multi-strategy approach to vaccination appeals. In recent weeks, the UK has witnessed a notable surge in whooping cough cases, a severe infection particularly dangerous to children and pregnant women. Public health messaging has strongly emphasized vaccination as a crucial measure to combat this infection. Naturally, this is the case in the official communication of the UK Health Security Agency. BBC's coverage highlights worrying rise of cases However, a quick examination of the mainstream media coverage reveals what could be described as a hesitancy to include direct vaccination appeals, as can be surmised from a BBC’s report  which emphasized the threatening aspect, and a local news report which highlighted its regional spread . While mentioning a decline in vaccination rates, the coverage avoided direct calls to vaccinate and mere