TellMe

TELL ME was a 3 year (to January 2015) EU funded collaborative project about effective communication before, during and after infectious disease crises (particularly influenza epidemics). It collected evidence about:

  • attitudes toward vaccination, hand hygiene and other protective behaviour;
  • and communication during the 2009 H1N1 epidemic.

This evidence was used to develop advice about effective communication and other communication tools. Project outputs included a framework for communication, a series of documents about aspects such as stigma, and an online course for medical professionals.

CRESS was responsible for developing a prototype computer simulation to assist planners to assess the effect of different communication options on people's behaviour and hence the impact on a hypothetical epidemic.

The model file and user guide can be downloaded from the CRESS website at http://cress.soc.surrey.ac.uk/web/resources/models/tell-me-model The user guide describes how to install the software, how to use the simulation, and guidance through some training scenarios. The prototype was developed in NetLogo, freely available open source software. It also relies on the eXtraWidgets NetLogo extension. They can be downloaded from https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/download.shtml and https://github.com/CRESS-Surrey/eXtraWidgets/releases/tag/v1.0.0 respectively.