CDC Response to Public Comment 1

In response to public comments provided by: Anonymous

Thank you for taking the time to provide input on our proposed research project, “Effective Communication in Public Health Emergencies – Developing Community-Centered Tools for People with Special Health Care Needs.” We appreciate your recognition of the need for this type of project and appreciate your support and comments.

We agree with your concern about social media and its limitations with certain age groups. For this reason, we will be exploring a wide-range of communication channels, including but not limited to social media. Though we are interested in the potential role of social media in this context, we intend to explore a broad range of communication preferences of the families of children and youth with special health care needs. We will also try to reach families with children of many different ages to try to understand their different communication needs.

As for your concerns about data security, we will be using Qualtrics to conduct online surveys and the data will be housed on a secure server at Drexel University. Neither the completed surveys nor summaries of interviews will contain information that identifies subjects. Information from both surveys and interviews will be maintained for the duration of the study, and available only to study team members for purposes of analysis. Printed documents containing personal information will be maintained in locked file cabinets when not in use, and digital information will be maintained on password protected computer systems housed at the University. Personal information will be destroyed after the study concludes. We expect to be able to complete the project according to the proposed timeline.

Thank you again for your input and support.

Sincerely,

Esther Chernak, MD, MPH Keri Lubell, PhD

Principal Investigator Technical Monitor

Drexel University Centers for Disease Control and Prevention