Major Epidemic Public Health Safety Sign Text Messages: Grounded Analysis of WHO Website Texts

During the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency signs and graphic messages announced prohibitions or recommendations regarding certain behaviours. They needed to be repeatedly and frequently communicated to the public in order to promptly prevent harm caused by the virus. The purposes of this study were to clarify the most commonly used public health text messages and types issued during the epidemic, to summarise the messages that the public needed to pay attention to during the public health emergency, and to establish norms for text messages related to major epidemic prevention and control in the post-epidemic era. This study investigated text data regarding the prevention and control of public health emergencies published on the official website of the World Health Organization (WHO). It used Grounded Theory to conduct content analysis of the text data. The study found that: (1) the two categories emphasized in public health text messages included ‘Preventive Behaviour’ with an indication function, and ‘Own Health’ with a warning function. (2) ‘Prevention Transmission’ was the main dimension of the two categories of public health text messages, emphasising that people should take the initiative to avoid behaviours that may be detrimental to their health and safety. In addition, the two properties that appeared with the highest frequency were ‘Vaccination’ and ‘Keep Distance’.