Lessons Beyond the Lockdown: What the Pandemic Should Have Taught Us in the Fields of Health Education, Scientific Communication and Health Inequities

Health education and scientific communication

Misinformation reached such heights during the pandemic that in 2021, the United States Office of the Surgeon General felt it necessary to release an advisory declaring the dangers of health misinformation while urging the public to limit its spread.² More specifically, a 2021 systematic review found health misinformation prevalence to range from 30% to 87% of social media posts within certain subjects.³ Misinformation of any variety strains the bonds of trust central to modern society, especially within healthcare.⁴ Misinformation is everywhere and has become more difficult to recognise. The rampancy of misinformation during the pandemic clearly illuminated how it acts as a genuine threat and why uncited information warrants scepticism.

Beyond misinformation, the pandemic also exposed the difficulties of communicating scientific findings in real time. Science is a data-driven process that takes time to reach conclusions and even more time to rule out competing explanations. Some would argue that this is a weakness, while I and many others would claim that it is one of science’s greatest strengths. During the pandemic, this process’s inherent uncertainty was visible in changing social distancing guidelines, differing vaccine development projections and opposing views on treatment with potential ‘groundbreaking’ drug uses like hydroxychloroquine. Both governments and the scientific community often failed to acknowledge this simple fact in their communications, resulting in downstream loss of faith in our institutions.^5,6 When working with preliminary findings, it is important to speak in conditionals and acknowledge the inherent uncertainty, admitting that we do not have all the answers.⁷ Communicating with the public in this way is the most truthful, transparent and ethical course of action. Uncertainty is a part of the human condition, on ‘normal days’ as well as during a pandemic.

Health inequities

The pandemic also revealed how longstanding inequities are amplified during healthcare crises. A 2025 Kaiser Family Foundation study determined that across the United States, a majority of 64 measurements of health, healthcare and social determinants of health disproportionately disadvantage people of colour, particularly Hispanic, Black and American Indian and Alaska Native people.⁸ These disparities exist due to a complex array of historical, institutional and societal pressures that limit access to quality care, education and economic mobility.^9-11 During healthcare crises, heightened strain on healthcare infrastructure places hospitals, clinics, supply chains and health services that serve these marginalised populations at the greatest risk of disruption. This strain increases the likelihood that patients receive care that does not reflect these facilities’ full capabilities, resulting in worse health outcomes. Data show that racial and ethnic minority groups in the US had higher rates of COVID-19 infection, hospitalisation and mortality, compared to White populations.^12,13 Inequities in healthcare do exist and played an oversized role in determining health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic.¹² If allowed to persist at current levels, these same inequities would catalyse similarly disproportionate harms in the next healthcare crisis.

Converging lessons

A lasting legacy of the pandemic is increased public discourse and concern over vaccines. A major perspective often left out of conversations about COVID-19 vaccines was their ‘nontraditional’ benefits, meaning benefits that, while well understood by epidemiologists and other scientists, the public might not consider when forming a vaccine decision. Such benefits include diminishing transmission, reducing mutation risk by limiting viral replication and decreasing risk of severe disease or hospitalisation, rather than preventing disease altogether.^14-16 While a vaccinated individual may not have complete protection from COVID-19 infection, if infected, they are less likely to require significant medical resources, transmit the virus to others or host a virus that mutates into a more harmful strain. Collectively, these nontraditional benefits have the potential to shorten a pandemic and provide far greater value to the community than to any one individual.

While many Americans are aware of herd immunity and other public health principles, these factors may not weigh heavily enough in their vaccination decisions to overcome vaccine hesitancy or apathy.⁵ This logic is echoed in face masks: While the common surgical/medical and cloth masks provide some protection to the wearer from exposure to aerosolised respiratory droplets containing the virus, their primary benefit is reducing transmission of these droplets from the wearer to others.^17-19 Protecting those around us, especially those in high-risk and/or vulnerable populations, should have been reason enough to wear masks during the pandemic, regardless of how uncomfortable or inconvenient they may have been.^7,20 By better communicating and considering potential public health measures that protect and benefit the community at large (especially those most vulnerable to disease), rather than the individual, we can improve the human outcomes of future pandemics.