Introduction: In order to provide refined effects analysis of health communication intervention, this study aims to measure and compare the impact on the knowledge and protective attitudes and behavior intentions(KAP) towards canine rabies of interventions that use the local TV net(V1) and WeChat platform (V2) delivering a short video, and cartoon pamphlet(P). Materials and Methods: The study used a between-subject design involving repeated measures of rabies-related KAP. 800 randomly selected villagers were randomly allocated into four intervention groups (V1, V2, P and V2+P) and one control. The content of video and pamphlet covered topics about rabies prevention, route of transmission, and so on. The pamphlet was given door to door once immediately after the pretest. One day after the pretest, the same video was posted one time through WeChat platform, and was broadcasted via local TV net two times each day in consecutive fifteen days. A validated questionnaire was used to capture demographic and KAP information. Ordinary Least Squares regression was used to contrast the effects of interventions. Results: Our results indicate that overall V2 outperforms V1 but underperforms P at improving KAP scores. Our results suggest that a combined intervention of V2 and P can result in higher scores than any of the two in isolation. The impact on the knowledge, protective attitudes and behavior intentions scores is revealed in a decreasing sequence. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that health communication modes based on V1, V2, P and a combination of the two are all effective to improve rabies-related KAP in the short term. These findings provide a scientific basis for the implementation of health communication intervention toward rabies and further studies are needed to investigate the long term and other social media message elements benefits of these interventions on the reduction of rabies incidence in humans.

In this study, we introduce the vulnerability index to measure the regional ASF epidemic and present the ASF severity ratings of 31 provincial regions of China. The index is defined based on the data from investigation, national statistical yearbook and reports. The data to be used includes pig breeding, financial resources, human resources, epidemic information of ASF and price fluctuation from the 31 regions. Then we use the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to define the vulnerability index, the relative severity values for each region which quantitatively reflect the damage degree caused by the epidemic of ASF. The method allows us to provide a systematic classification for regional vulnerability level of ASF in China. Using the index, we find that the vulnerability of the whole country is at a high level, and there is no regional aggregation phenomenon. The vulnerability level of the 31 provinces are quite different and the provinces with high vulnerability level are dispersive geographically. For the five major prevention and control zones for ASF in China, the northern region has the highest vulnerability level, while the level of eastern zoon is the lowest.