COVID-19 and the importance of effective risk communication with children.

During the current COVID-19 pandemic, effective risk communication is essential to mitigate the mental health impact on children and their families. Effective risk communication involves being honest but yet reassuring, framing issues in an actionable way, and modeling realistically reassuring communication among adults. Health care providers may discuss with families principles of modeling good media consumption habits to mitigate misinformation on social media. In addition, health numeracy and health literacy need to be integrated into proper risk communication.