CDC CERC Best Practices: Stigmatization

This resource helps you address stigmatization by providing best practices for inhibiting and the actions to take when you encounter stigmatization when new infectious diseases and illness emerge.

Early in an outbreak, such as the 2009 H1N1 outbreak, groups of people, places, and animals can be singled out and will be at risk of being stigmatized by association with the threat this virus poses. Groups are stigmatized by an infectious disease when the risk of infection to others is not present or remote but the association of the risk is magnified by others for that population group, or place or animal.