Although half of Americans read at an eighth-grade level, only 20 percent of
state health department Web sites were written at that level in 2005, according
to research in the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, researchers
found. Most of the sites were written at a 10th- or 11th-grade level. "People
in particular need of up-to-date and accurate health care information appear
least able to share in the benefits of online government resources," say
researchers Darrell West, Ph.D., and Edward Alan Miller, Ph.D., of Brown
University.
H
I T S
The
biggest "hit" of
the year goes to an American Journal of Preventive
Medicine experiment that showed that people
- in this case nutrition experts -- ate more
ice cream if it was served in a larger bowl.
The story was used in at least 138 media,
31 of which were daily newspapers and included
the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and
the Houston Chronicle. The Los Angeles Times
also gave significant play to a story based
on HBNS distribution of a Cochrane Collaboration
evidence review on ergonomics.
M
I S S E S
This
month's entry is not from the news media
but from a corporate flack with
an astounding misplacement of priorities and
common sense. Commenting on a study about using
a cell phone while driving -- which 8 percent
of drivers do at any given time -- Joe Farren
of the cell phone industry played down the
danger: "We don't want people to use phones
in their cars if they think it's going to distract
them, (emphasis added), but there are a lot
of other things that are equally or more distracting
for drivers."
Are
we really surprised anymore that most people do not act rationally
when it comes
to judging health or safety risks? They get tested for
breast cancer but not for heart disease; they fear living
in an earthquake zone but they talk on their cell phone
while driving; they think they can't get a sexually transmitted
disease from a single fling.
Jessie
Gruman President
and Executive Director
Center for the
Advancement of Health
However,
there are two startling risks that Americans seem to
be hyper-aware of, and paradoxically unprepared for.
A recent article by Newhouse News Service reports that
no one is doing much to prepare for either a terrorism
attack or a Katrina-sized natural disaster: "Some
call it a waste of time. Others say they can't afford
it. Still others object to the Bush administration trying
to tell them what to do," the report concludes.
On the other hand, one group has learned something from
Katrina -- those concerned with the effect of disaster
on pregnant mothers and newborns. The White Ribbon Alliance
for Safe Motherhood has organized to get public agencies
to incorporate new mothers and babies into emergency
planning.
And a school board in Ohio is revising its sex education
curriculum, having learned that abstinence-only may not
be the way to go since 65 girls -- or 13 percent of the
female student body at one school -- turned up pregnant.
Everyone
perceives risk differently. Professor Paul Slovic uses
one definition of risk as "a blend of
the probability and the severity of consequences." Even
when correctly perceived, everyone processes and acts
on it differently, which may explain why former Homeland
Security Secretary Tom Ridge thought duct tape and plastic
sheeting was an answer for terrorism.
Cognitive
research tells us, as essayist Nassim Nicholas Taleb
explains, that "you
only worry about what you know, and typically once
you know about something
the damage is done."
A classic study a generation ago found that people who
watch the most TV -- children and shut-ins -- had exponentially
greater fear of crime and other urban dangers than actually
existed. And who knows how many movie-goers who love
to be terrorized now fear snakes on a plane more than
flakes on a plane?
So the issue for both public policy and public health
is how to convert the odds of an unexpected occurrence
into sensible action. Everyone knows to stockpile a three-day
supply of food, water and batteries. But we don't. And
who is to say whether it is because we are too aware
of the low risk of terrorism and killer hurricanes or
too indifferent to them because we are terror fatigued?
In New York City, Arlington, Va., London and Madrid,
life goes on pretty much as it did before terrorists
struck, and that is ominous. Because faulty risk-awareness
can cause us to either overstate the odds of disaster
or, conversely, to ignore them in the cacophony of false
alarms sounded in conjunction with every negative political
poll. In that case, terror fatigue becomes the biggest
risk of all because the consequences are fraught with
both probability and severity.
FROM THE CENTER
NEW
STAFF The Center welcomes Brandon T. Moore as its new communications
manager. Brandon has a background in Web development and
public affairs. Before joining the Center he worked at the
U.S. Trade and Development Agency and the Washington Metropolitan
Area Transit Authority. He majored in psychology at North
Carolina Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount, N.C.
OUTREACHBarbara
Krimgold, senior project director for Center
programs on health inequalities, was on the program of a National
Cancer Institute career development workshop on increasing
diversity in research funding. Center Vice President for Public
Affairs Ira Allen promoted the Health Behavior News Service
at the Society for Professional Journalists convention.
GEIGER
FELLOW The Center has named the 2006-2007 H. Jack Geiger
Fellow in health policy. The program, supported by the W.K.
Kellogg Foundation, Aetna Foundation and Annie E. Casey Foundation,
and directed by Barbara Krimgold, places scholars in congressional
offices. The new fellow, Celeste Torio, works in the office
of Senator Edward M. Kennedy.
President
Bush signed an executive order requiring the four federal
agencies paying for health care to speed the use of information
technology, put quality
measures into effect and make cost information transparent to the public. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/20060822-2.html.
The
Community-Campus Partnerships for Health is calling for
proposals for its conference on "Mobilizing Partnerships
for Social Change” next April 11-14 in Toronto.
Deadline: Oct. 6. Details: http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/conf-cfp.html.
The
National Institute of General Medical Sciences has
announced a new predoctoral NRSA institutional training
grant program to develop basic behavioral scientists with
rigorous broad-based training in the biomedical sciences.
Details: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-06-503.html.
