Being prepared to respond to difficult situations that arise in public health practice is an essential skill for the public health workforce.This empathic responding guide was designed to train students, volunteers, and staff of the ASU COVID-19 Case Investigation Team. The guide provides an overview of empathic communication, walks through a framework for responding with empathy, and outlines common difficult situations that arise in public health along with ways to respond with empathy to these situations. This guide can be adapted to a wide variety of settings and is meant to be used as a training tool for public health case investigators and other staff. This guide, available in a full and an abridged version, can be paired with hands-on workshops to provide engaging continuing education opportunities for public health teams.

The purpose of this study is to determine if cultivation theory and its suggestion that society cultivates ideals of a mean world because of heavy exposure to violent media, pertains to those already incarcerated. Adults, 18 and over, living in the United States completed a survey that measured empathetic and apathetic views of the incarcerated through the viewing of positive and negative portrayals of incarceration. Results indicated that viewer's empathy was significantly higher when viewers watched positive portrayals of incarceration than when they watched negative portrayals. Correlation between age and empathic views was tested. No correlation was found between empathy for positive portrayals of the incarcerated, and the age of the viewer. However, there was a significant negative, albeit weak, relationship between age and empathy toward character in negative portrayals of incarceration. Implications of the findings specifically examining potential for future research and practical applications to destigmatize incarceration are discussed.