CENTER FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF HEALTH MAY 2008 Stuck Reading the Small Print Printable Version   SubScribe To GoodBehavior! Unsubscribe from GoodBehavior! GoodBehavior! archives The line between empowerment and befuddlement isn’t getting any clearer. Sad homeowners who made unwitting commitments to exotic mortgages can confirm this. Far too often, the latest “new thing” claiming to give people choices just sets them up to make bad decisions. At the same time, a growing “we report, you decide” mentality from news media undermines authority and demeans expertise. Increasingly we are bombarded with provocative new health research on a daily basis and expected to somehow separate the wheat from the chaff. Many of my professional colleagues see education as the panacea. If we could just teach the average American a bit more about the scientific method and statistical analysis, they say, then the public would make prudent personal decisions about which research findings to pay attention to. That’s a superficially commendable plan. I’m not about to argue against enhancing education. But there’s growing evidence that this is inefficient at best – and often simply a failure. Why not simply report on less chaff? Jessie Gruman President Center for the Advancement of Health Even in a time of the democratization of information, we still need credible gatekeepers --in medicine, science and journalism -- who make the rough cut about what is really important and thus help us focus on things that truly deserve our attention. Bombarding us with reports about startlingly high relative risks for breast cancer incurred by eating grapefruit or having a chest x-ray when the absolute risk is negligible constitutes little more than subversive entertainment that leaves us doubting our ability to make fully informed decisions even if it does precipitate water cooler conversations. A lesson we keep relearning is that Simpler Is Better. Few of us are interested in building our own computer or sound system, so the mass market gravitates to simple, reliable products that require only an on-off switch. But health discussions quickly stray from simplicity on issues ranging from the nutrition pyramid to comparing treatments or health plans. And these are complex topics---endlessly interesting to experts and a few in the general public. But too often experts fail us: they collude with the media hungry for a new story by indiscriminately showering us with interesting bits of data that create confusion while undermining our confidence in our ability to make informed choices about how we can act to prevent disease and to find safe, decent health care. Hundreds of Web sites and newsletters have stepped up in an effort to relieve this confusion, some by consolidating every scrap of new health data on a single topic, some through expert commentary and some by gathering the views of “people like me” on the conclusions that can be drawn from any new study. Sharing the wisdom of crowds will certainly help some people some of the time, but won’t eliminate the need for thoughtful, balanced experts with big messages aimed at broad populations. Today’s environment will require scientists and journalists alike to learn some new tricks to deliver them effectively. In the meantime, just as many homeowners have discovered, we’re just going to have to buck up: read the fine print and do the best we can.   FROM THE HEALTH BEHAVIOR NEWS SERVICE The Health Behavior News Service regularly distributes stories summarizing new research on health behavior issues. These stories can be found online at http://www.cfah.org/hbns/current.cfm. Here are some stories released in April: Physically Active Smokers More Likely to Kick the Habit Physically active smokers might have greater success quitting smoking than those who are more sedentary, according to a new study from the University of Toronto in Canada. Splints Good as Casts for Minor Wrist Fractures — When Kids Wear Them Removable splints and plaster casts appears to be equally safe and effective for treating minor “buckle” wrist fractures in children, British researchers report in a new review of studies. But a U.S. orthopedics expert argues that splints have a major disadvantage: kids can take them off at will. Patients With Terminal Cancer Can Beat Depression Though it might seem like depression is a logical response to terminal cancer, a new research review has found that talk therapy can effectively treat symptoms of depression, even among the dying. Parkinson’s Drugs Tradeoff: Better Muscle Control, Worse Side Effects Compared to older drugs for Parkinson disease, a newer class of medications called dopamine agonists might be better at preventing some of the disabling muscle control problems associated with the disease and its treatment, a new review of recent studies concludes. Homemade Asthma-Relief Device Could Be an Option for Poor Families When an asthma attack occurs, many sufferers use a device — a “spacer” — to increase the chances that rescue medicine travels from an inhaler all the way down to the airways where it is needed. A new review found no difference between the effectiveness of commercially manufactured devices and homemade spacers. Children Should Not Take Antihistamines for Chronic Cough Chronic cough can cut into children’s sleep and fray parents’ nerves. Although antihistamines can alleviate cough, possible side effects outweigh their benefits, say authors of a new review of studies.