Objective      To investigate the cognition difference of different populations with different nationalities

occupations and genders to Ebola-related sensitive words in risk events on the background of Ebola epidemic outbreak in West Africa

February

2014.       Methods      A total of 173 Ebola-related words were selected from news reports and academic papers

and populations with different occupations and genders from China and Liberia were invited to judge the correlation between the selected words and Ebola epidemic with five-level scores. The questionnaires of 256 test objects were analyzed with Software SPSS 18.0.       Results      The medical staffs

community workers and medical students had significant differences in the consistency of cognition (P0.01)

and the populations with different nationalities and genders also had significant difference in the consistency of cognition (P0.01). The cognitions of the medical staffs

community workers and medical students to the sensitive words were different

and the cognitions of the medical staffs and community workers were significantly correlated (P0.05). The cognitions of the populations with different nationalities to the sensitive words were different (P0.05)

and the cognitions of the populations with different genders were significantly correlated (P0.01).       Conclusion      The cognition consistency and the cognition to Ebola-related sensitive words have significant differences among different populations. The influence of social factors such as occupations and nationalities on the cognition to the sensitive words may be greater than that of the factors such as genders.