Jessica Rivera
Infectious-disease epidemiologist and science communicator, and Senior Science Communication Advisor at the de Beaumont Foundation. She is known for translating public-health data and research into accessible guidance and for work on health misinformation, trust, and pandemic communication.
Public Health Must Treat Misinformation as an Outbreak
Epidemiologist and science communicator Jessica Malaty Rivera argues that public-health emergencies involve two outbreaks: the pathogen itself and the information surrounding it. In conversation with TED’s Whitney Pennington Rodgers, she says trust cannot be assumed or commanded through expertise; it must be earned through listening, transparent explanation of evidence and uncertainty, and messages that account for people’s histories and fears. Rivera’s case is that communication is not an add-on to prevention but part of the intervention.
Pandemic Preparedness Is Being Built and Dismantled at Once
At Aspen Ideas: Health, Blythe Adamson, Ashish Jha, John Nkengasong and Jessica Malaty Rivera argued that the world is still not ready for the next fast-moving infectious threat, even as WHO members negotiate the first legally binding pandemic agreement. Their case was that preparedness now depends as much on early detection, engineered-biology safeguards, regional response capacity, trusted communication and global financing as on vaccines and stockpiles — and that several of those systems are being weakened at the same time they are supposed to be built.