Information disclosure during the COVID-19 epidemic in China: A city-level observational study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND: Information disclosure is a top priority for official responses to the 2019 coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) The timely and standardized information published by the authorities as a response to the crisis can make the public better informed and prepared for the pandemic;however, there is limited evidence of any systematic analyses of the disclosed epidemic information This in turn has important implications for risk communication OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to describe and compare the officially released content regarding the local epidemic situations and analyze the characteristics of information disclosure through local transmission in major cities of China METHODS: The 31 capital cities in mainland China were included in a city-level observational study Data were retrieved from local municipalities and health commission websites as of March 18, 2020 A checklist was employed as a rapid qualitative assessment tool to analyze the information disclosure performance of each city Descriptive analyses and data visualizations were produced to present and compare the comparative performances of the cities RESULTS: In total, 29 cities (93 5%) established specific COVID-19 webpages to disclose information Among them, 12 of the city webpages were added to their corresponding municipal websites A majority of the cities (21 of 31, 67 7%) published their first cases of infection in a timely manner on the actual day of confirmation Regarding the information disclosures highlighted on the websites, news updates from local media or press briefings were the most prevalent (28 of 29, 96 6%), followed by epidemic surveillance (25 of 29, 86 2%) and advice for the public (25 of 29, 86 2%) Clarifications of misinformation and frequently asked questions were largely overlooked as only 2 cities provided this valuable information The median daily update frequency of epidemic surveillance summaries was 1 2 times per day (interquartile range 1 0 to 1 3 times), and the majority of these summaries (18 of 25, 72 0%) also provided detailed information of confirmed cases The reporting of key indicators in the epidemic surveillance summaries, as well as critical facts included in the confirmed case reports, varied substantially between cities In general, the best performance in terms of timely reporting and the transparency of information disclosures were observed in the municipalities directly administered by the central government compared to the other cities CONCLUSIONS: Timely and effective efforts to disclose information related to the COVID-19 epidemic have been made in major cities of China Continued improvements to local authority reporting will contribute to more effective public communication and efficient public health research responses The development of protocols and the standardization of epidemic message templates-as well as the use of uniform operating procedures to provide regular information updates-should be prioritized to ensure a coordinated national response