The Navy Environmental and Preventive Medicine Unit (NEPMU) 7 hosted the Public Health Emergency Risk Communication Course aboard Naval Station Rota, Spain, July 13-15.

Approximately 20 participants from various commands within the European area of operations (AOR) attended the training.

The course is designed to strengthen the communication skills of medical, emergency response, public affairs, and other key personnel who may be called upon to both deliver and exchange information with stakeholders during an emergency.

These skills are especially important during a crisis situation when multiple factors are present that impede effective communication.

Crisis events where the information is either highly technical, conflicting or incomplete, or where emotions are running high, are some of the factors that key personnel and communicators must deal with.

"This is transformational training," said Capt. Juliann Althoff, NEPMU 7 officer in charge. "It teaches skills which allow our team of public health specialists to better communicate through the challenges that may be encountered during a health emergency. These skills matter, regardless if you are talking to one patient or a population of people, understanding perception of risk and knowing how to get your message across effectively really makes a difference."

The three-day interactive course includes a two-day risk communication workshop and an optional day of media training in which students may role-play in a mock media interviews.

The course, sponsored by the Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center (NMCPHC) is presented by Fulton Communications, a communications issues management firm that provides communications consulting and training. The training team included Keith Fulton and Sandy Martinez president and CEO respectively of Fulton Communications, and Dr. Paul Gillooly, NMCPHC Health Risk Communications, all of whom have had decades of experience communicating risk to the public during crises.

While Gillooly provided Navy specific risk communication training, the Fulton team used both instruction and role-play to teach students how to handle various communication issues including handling strong emotions and conveying perception of risk to stakeholders.

"Our goal is to assist Navy and Marine Corps personnel to clearly and effectively communicate on a daily basis with any stakeholder on any issue that could potentially affect our operations and our mission," said Gillooly. "We strive to teach proven risk communication tools and techniques. This will provide a consistent framework for explaining environmental, health or safety risks to our many stakeholders."

"The risk communications course is essential to anyone who may need to interact with the public," said 1st Lt. Danielle Dixon, public affairs officer with Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response-Africa (SPMAGTF-CR-AF). "We learned how to communicate clear and precise information to the public and our fellow service members, in order to better inform our audiences and ensure we can deescalate or resolve a variety of situations, including crises."

More information on NMCPHC risk communication products and services is available at: http://www.med.navy.mil/sites/nmcphc/environmental-programs/Pages/risk-communication.aspx.

For more news from Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center, visit www.navy.mil/.