The most important thing to consider when giving a presentation is your audience. Knowing your audience will dictate:

Each group will be scored (as a group) by your chosen audience. Your audience will also include a panel of experts (Dr. Choi, Lance, Lyndsay and a possible surprise judge) that will be judging you on your presentation. It is important to make sure you are focusing on facts your audience will need and want to know.

Factors to consider about your audience:

Basic outline of a complete presentation

1. Brief overview of the case
2. Summary of data gathered (this includes new information gained throughout the week, as well as the results of laboratory experiments).
3. Suggested causative agent and evidence for it.
4. Modes of transmission and hallmarks of disease
5. Recommendations for treatment and control.
6. Recommendations for prevention of future outbreaks.

Possible audiences

CDC/WHO: Public health organizations are concerned with the implications of an outbreak for an overall population. You will need to provide compelling evidence as to why you believe a particular organism is the source of the outbreak. This is not a group that will be readily convinced by only a single piece of data. Additionally, public health organizations are interested on mechanisms of spread (how, when, original source) and suggestions for control. This audience will be looking for your ideas of where this outbreak started, how it got where it is and how we can stop it and prevent it from happening again. Bear in mind that these are public health professionals and, therefore, have a more advanced understanding of diseases and disease spread than the general public. You can assume a basic understanding of modes of transmission and some simple diagnostic tools.

Government body: Government officials generally know a small amount about a lot of topics. Therefore, their scientific knowledge will be no more advanced than the general public. However, they are slightly less prone to panic and expect to be given straight, hard facts about the situation. You will need to convince them that you have investigated the situation thoroughly and demonstrate why the evidence points to a particular cause and source of the outbreak. This means not only providing the results of various studies but also explaining what these results mean. However, the main focus for government officials will be how to get the situation under control both from a public health and public policy perspective. This means explaining not only how to control the outbreak, but how to control the public response. They will also be looking for policy solutions to prevent control this outbreak and prevent future ones. Do not assume any prior knowledge of science beyond a high school level.

Academic professionals: Academic scientists are interested in the specific details of the organism, the evidence for it and detailed information on transmission. This audience will be interested in the scientific details that lead you to your conclusions. They will want to see experimental results and understand how and why you did your experiments. Additionally, they will be interested in the pathology of the disease, that is how the organism causes disease and what the specific hallmarks of a case patient are. You can assume a fairly high level of prior general science knowledge in this group. That is, they understand the basic concepts of Western blotting or Gram staining, but not the specifics of what experiments you did or details of your organism.

Public/media: The general public has only a rudimentary understanding of science. Therefore, they will largely trust evidence presented to them by a group of scientists. However, they (as a group) are also more prone to panic than the other groups. Therefore, anything that can be sensationalized by the media will likely get blown out of proportion and cause undue panic. However, it is important that the public understand the severity of an outbreak situation so that they understand the importance of compliance with control measures. Presenting to this group requires a proper balance of detailed information and calm reassurance. You must be able to explain the details of the case and the causative agent in simple terms that could be understood by the general public (imagine you are trying to explain to your grandmother what you did during immunology week of ExSEL). You do still need to present the evidence for your specific causative agent and why you can eliminate other possible causes, however, you will probably want less detail. This presentation should focus more on control measures and long range outcomes. Remember, you may be convincing the public to do things that are of no direct benefit to the individual but serve to protect the public as a whole.