Julie Belluz from the Science-ish blog provides a list of five problems practically applying health research in an article from Macleans.CA.
Reporters sensationalize the research and don't spend enough time to do in depth reporting. Researchers aren't paid for the time they work with journalists and do not trust them to report the information accurately. The resultant health policies are not in sync with the best available medical evidence.
I have interviewed people as a student newspaper reporter and have been interviewed by reporters on science topics. It is difficult to convert technical information into actionable information for the general public. It is similar to the task of presenting scientific evidence at a trial to a jury.
As I have read articles from other journalists, I am usually let down because they only cover the moment and don't give a historical perspective or don't bring in other information to provide a depth of understanding to the topic. I've tried to do this with the emerging swine flu H3N2 problem at state and county fairs in the US.
I attended a talk by Joel Barker as he introduced a The Implications Wheel tool at a workshop on Strategic Exploration - Learning to Explore the Future on July 11, 2012 at the U of MN St. Paul. The implications wheel allows people to examine the implications of a policy at three degrees of separation from the policy. Imagine five spokes on a wheel and then five spokes of a single spoke and five more spokes off of a single spoke of the new wheel. Each spoke in the wheel is a positive, negative or neutral outcome for the policy.
This allows people to see problems with policies before they are implemented. It works especially well when conducted with a group of diverse backgrounds using the wisdom of crowds.
Linking good science research reporting with the implications of health policy based on that research would go a long way to providing more effective and efficient public health policy.
Reporters sensationalize the research and don't spend enough time to do in depth reporting. Researchers aren't paid for the time they work with journalists and do not trust them to report the information accurately. The resultant health policies are not in sync with the best available medical evidence.
I have interviewed people as a student newspaper reporter and have been interviewed by reporters on science topics. It is difficult to convert technical information into actionable information for the general public. It is similar to the task of presenting scientific evidence at a trial to a jury.
As I have read articles from other journalists, I am usually let down because they only cover the moment and don't give a historical perspective or don't bring in other information to provide a depth of understanding to the topic. I've tried to do this with the emerging swine flu H3N2 problem at state and county fairs in the US.
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| Joel Barker July 11, 2012 U of MN - photo N. Carlson |
I attended a talk by Joel Barker as he introduced a The Implications Wheel tool at a workshop on Strategic Exploration - Learning to Explore the Future on July 11, 2012 at the U of MN St. Paul. The implications wheel allows people to examine the implications of a policy at three degrees of separation from the policy. Imagine five spokes on a wheel and then five spokes of a single spoke and five more spokes off of a single spoke of the new wheel. Each spoke in the wheel is a positive, negative or neutral outcome for the policy.
Linking good science research reporting with the implications of health policy based on that research would go a long way to providing more effective and efficient public health policy.
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