Background: The increasing frequency of natural and man-made disasters highlights the critical need for effective risk communication to bolster healthcare systems and enhance community resilience. Inadequate dissemination of accurate information, coupled with the proliferation of misinformation, can undermine public trust and hinder crisis response efforts. Although training in risk communication is vital for improving preparedness and mitigating vulnerability, structured, evidence-based educational programs in this domain remain scarce and fragmented. Accordingly, this study seeks to identify, map, and characterize existing curricula and educational programs focused on disaster and emergency risk communication across diverse contexts.
Materials and methods: This scoping review will adhere to the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology. Comprehensive searches will be conducted across major international databases (PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar) and Persian-language databases (ISC, SID, and MAGIRAN), with no time restrictions applied. Additionally, relevant organizational websites, including those of the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), and other pertinent institutions, will be systematically searched to identify gray literature, existing curricula, and educational programs related to disaster and emergency risk communication.
Conclusion: This scoping review will provide a comprehensive overview of existing curricula and educational programs in disaster and emergency risk communication. The findings are expected to inform the development of standardized, evidence-based training frameworks to enhance communication skills among professionals engaged in disaster and emergency management.
Ethics code: This study is part of a Ph.D. thesis approved by the Ethics Committee of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (IR.SBMU.PHNS.REC.1404.004).