This book reminded me of one of the main downfalls of health in the United States, health literacy. Health literacy is defined as "degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions". The National Assessment of Adult Literacy states that only 12% of the United States has proficient health literacy, most of whom belong to health related professions. This may not sound profound until you look at the evidence showing that health literacy might be the single best predictor of individual health status throughout a lifetime.
Several organizations recommend that all health literature be written at a sixth to eighth grade reading level to fall in line with the average reading level in the United States. However, most information is written at a far higher level and leads many readers to either give up or believe misinterpreted information. Consequently, many Americans rely on the media and the world around them to keep them informed about health related topics and the interventions of today.
I partially blame the media for the hysteria of today surrounding vaccines. A long-time argument surrounding vaccines may be the argument that autism can be caused by vaccines, specifically the MMR vaccine. The media, all too eager to share, informed the world in 1998 that Andrew Wakefield had found a link between the MMR vaccine and autism or a behavioral disorder that shadowed autism. What the media failed to share was that in conclusion to Wakefield's research he states "We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described" (Biss, pg. 70). Furthermore, the media didn't make much effort to report the decade worth of failed research trying to prove the theory or the information released in the 2000s about Wakefield being paid for his research (possible bias) and later being banned from practicing medicine in Britain.
Essentially, I am saying that today's media has a very selective way of presenting information that leaves Americans with a very incomplete understanding of the medical world around them. The media cannot be fully blamed because they were never officially tasked with the job of keeping the public informed on health related topics. What needs to be learned from this experience is that the media and health fields must work together to keep America up to date by using both information written at the appropriate reading level and reporting the complete picture. We must ensure that Americans can make decisions based on knowledge and not fear. To me, one of the most powerful and truthful lines of this book came when Biss quoted, "Perhaps what matters," Sunstein muses, "is not whether people are right on the facts, but whether they are frightened. (Biss, pg. 38)" Informed decisions are what we must strive for and can only be made with complete knowledge, not based off fear or emotions.
Biss, E. (2015). On immunity: an inoculation.Minneapolis, MN: Greywolf.
Quick Guide to Health Literacy. (n.d.). Retrieved February 18, 2018, from https://health.gov/communication/literacy/quickguide/factsbasic.htm
This is awesome! It's kind of no surprise that most Americans are so ignorant about vaccines, given the fact that our health literacy is so poor. The fact that only 12% of the population is "proficient"? I haven't heard that statistic before, but that's actually insane. Either we as Americans need to get better at understanding health information or health information has to be shared in a way that non-health-literate people can read it. Excellent writing and commentary.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Megan! I really enjoyed your opinions and I found myself agreeing with you. Education is so important in all parts of life, but especially regarding health issues. Instead of relying on what the TV tells you or what the magazines are saying, people should be reading real data and try to become more health literate. It's so easy to get caught up in the hysteria when you could just read and refute the issues. I think that the medical information tries to be understandable for all people, but people don't think they can understand it by themselves. Perhaps more people should be discussing with their physicians and various medical professionals and let the media's words go in one ear and out the other.
ReplyDeleteCan you please give me the source of this statement:
ReplyDelete"Furthermore, the media didn't make much effort to report the decade worth of failed research trying to prove the theory or the information released in the 2000s about Wakefield being paid for his research (possible bias) and later being banned from practicing medicine in Britain."
It is true that the media reacts to the hot and dazzlingly sounding news. Perhaps since the process of peer reviews and replication takes a long time, their interest waned and failed to capture invalidity of Wakefield's research.
Yet there are look-back articles and video that compile the whole story of the research, published by ncbi, Huffingtonpost, and Vox, that show up on the first page of Google. Do you think that concerned mothers should able to find them easily when they think about vaccinating their children?
There is no exact source for that statement. This statement was made researching news articles throughout the years. The article was published in 1998 and sparked the MMR vaccine war. From there, it took until 2004 (even though it hadn't been proven once in those 6 years and was already being questioned) for the news to even begin broadcasting the fact that there were allegations against Wakefield for conflict of interest. Furthermore, it took until 2010 (12 years!) for Lancet (the publisher) to take down the article.
DeleteMy argument is that the media took so long to report the falsehoods of this research. Most videos and articles you quote are within the last few years. Before that, most true articles disputing Wakefield's research were scientific articles and few were news broadcasts and news articles. The problem with the scientific articles, going back to an earlier topic, is they are mostly written at too high of a reading level.
The media waiting so long has had a negative effect in both the US and specifically Britain. Britain and countries across Europe reports a four fold increase in the amount of measles cases (affecting more than 20000).
I agree that mothers have information when they are considering vaccinating their children. However, I ask that they receive ALL the information in order to make fully educated and informed decisions.
Great thoughts Quoc!
Just a couple of the sources I looked at. Truthfully, couldn't list all of them because it would be crazy long!
Deletehttps://sciencebasedmedicine.org/lancet-retracts-wakefield-article/
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/measles-back-with-a-vengeance-due-to-fake-health-news-1.3401960
Great article! This goes to show how important the media is in how we interpret everything around us. In your article you said, "health literacy might be the single best predictor of individual health status throughout a lifetime." That line really hit me. If health literacy has such a profound impact on health status, you would think that making sure people were health literate would be a top priority. However, this seems to fall to the wayside as many other thing are given more importance.
ReplyDeleteWow this post is really informative! I like how you brought up statistics about health literacy. That's crazy that only 12% of the US has proficient health literacy. When you discuss the media's involvement in this misrepresentation of vaccination information, I think part of the issue is that the media is driven by the number of views on their content. Frightening headlines get more views than others, and it's sad that the information people receive can be corrupted by this.
ReplyDelete