Lahne Mattas-Curry

Crises can negatively impact communities that are already marginalized by existing social systems. Building trusting relationships with these communities is paramount to crisis and risk communication effectiveness, but little work has focused on the strategies crisis and risk communicators use to do so. Against this backdrop, we conducted a two-phase qualitative study with community health workers (CHWs) working in Latine communities. CHWs typically come from the communities they serve and are tasked with communicating important crisis and risk communication information to community members. In Phase 1, 20 CHWs were interviewed, and 21 CHWs were interviewed for Phase 2. Our findings show that CHWs seek to build trusting relationships with community members by leveraging shared social identities drawing from two important identity-based theories in communication—communication theory of identity and social identity theory. Specifically, CHWs in our study leveraged social identities including ethnic, national, and immigrant identities; family members and neighbors; and as economically and legally precarious immigrants. Extending theorizing in crisis and risk communication, our findings also show that identities are not a panacea for trust building in crisis and risk contexts but can lead to identity disconnections that can negatively affect communication. However, our findings also show that CHWs navigate these disconnections through creative communication. Our discussion highlights the implications for crisis and risk communication theory and practice.

The importance of communities is central to public relations theory, which has recently received renewed scholarly attention. The COVID-19 pandemic put in sharp focus the importance of community – and the detrimental consequences for society when community life is disrupted. This study combines theorizing on communities and the care-based relationship cultivation model to investigate public relations in a non-traditional setting. We conducted 41 interviews with community health workers (CHWs) engaged with Latino communities during and after the pandemic. Our findings uncover a variety of strategies CHWs employ to sustain community relationships, culminating in the new care-based community cultivation framework. To support community involvement, CHWs communicate their competency, are part of the communities they serve, and meet people where they are. To support community nurturing, CHWs actively listen, communicate with empathy, and educate while working from the heart. They also serve as safe harbors, acknowledge their role limitations, build trust through sustained relationships, and overcome challenges while respecting culture. To support community organizing, CHWs make service connections while acknowledging system limitations and tailor official health guidance. Additionally, CHWs work to overcome obstacles to community members’ well-being. Ultimately, we echo calls for more public relations scholarship to uplift marginalized communities, especially during crises, so that our work supports community well-being and safety.