One Health messaging about bats and rabies: how framing of risks, benefits, and attributions can support public health and wildlife conservation goals

Improving awareness to prevent exposure to bat rabies continues to be a high public health priority; however, many messages about bats and rabies often sensationalize this issue and misrepresent bats in a negative way, which... [ view full abstract ]

Improving awareness to prevent exposure to bat rabies continues to be a high public health priority; however, many messages about bats and rabies often sensationalize this issue and misrepresent bats in a negative way, which is at odds with messages promoting bat conservation by wildlife agencies. To help advance both public health and wildlife conservation goals, we conducted two separate experiments using eight different messages with visitors in four U.S. national parks in July-August 2014. Messages varied in terms of risk certainty, mention of bat benefits, and attribution of blame for the disease. In study 1, participants (N=480) were randomly assigned to read one of four messages as part of a 2 x 2 between-subjects factorial design or a control (no message) condition: risk-benefit versus risk-only x human blame versus bat blame. The results show that all four messages promoted intentions to prevent rabies exposure compared to the control condition. In addition, when exposed to the bat blame messages, participants were positive about bats when the messages included risk-benefit information versus risk-only information. In study 2, participants (N=521) were assigned to one of four message conditions or a control condition: risk-benefit versus risk only x certain versus uncertain. The results found the risk-benefit message led to higher intentions to adopt the recommended behavior to prevent exposure to rabies without unnecessarily stigmatizing bats. Taken together, the results of the two studies suggest that messages that include benefits of bats alongside risks in bat rabies prevention messages can meet both human and wildlife health objectives.