First, two articles related to a topic that made up a big chunk of my last post- Communicating science and medicine to the general public, in particular informing parents of the safety and necessity of childhood vaccinations and encouraging them to have their children vaccinated. This first link will lead you to a post on the brilliant Mind Hacks blog by Tom Stafford, reposted there from its original publication The Conversation. In this post Tom Stafford goes beyond the obvious (and definitely too simplistic) explanation that “anti-vaxxers” (not necessarily just parents but also activists and so-called 'experts') are ignorant or irrational and their beliefs can be countered simply by giving them access to the facts on the safety of vaccines. The piece takes a look at the entirely normal and rational psychological processes that lead “anti-vaxxers” to hold the views they do and how healthcare providers and public health communicators could communicate their message to overcome these processes.
The second article examines different ways to engage parents and how effective they are. Bethany Brookshire of the Scicurious blog explores what we might learn from the outcomes of the handful of studies that have looked at strategies to prompt vaccination take-up. The take home message seems to be that no single method for engaging parents will work, where some respond well to fear appeals other do not. For some parents just a presentation of the facts is enough to convince them to have their children vaccinated whilst for other parents this approach may have the opposite to intended effect. So how do we overcome this problem, a certain amount of tailoring the message to the recipient may be required, although this approach might not always be feasible to implement.
What I take most from these two articles though is that there is a desperate need for more research in to effective communication of health messages to patients and stronger links need to be forged between those who do this kind of research and the family doctors and other front line health care providers so information of best practise is more easily shared. Something which is bound to start happening a lot more, at the very least in the U.S. in response to the recent measles outbreaks.
Ten years ago John Ioannidis published a paper entitled “Why most published research findings are false” in which he reviewed the various pitfalls that scientific studies can and do fall foul that lead to false positive and un-replicatable results.
Here is a link to an interview with him to celebrate this ten year anniversary in which he talks about some of the further obstacles that face science in ensuring that research results are a true reflection of the real world and can be used to drive development and innovation in science. He makes some very interesting points and the interview is well worth a read on that basis but beware of some of the interviewers input, in my opinion they fall in to the trap of many journalists in presenting John Ioannidis as some lone maverick who is fighting against a biased, corrupt and complacent “big science” complex to add a bit more spice and intrigue to the piece. In fact the problems and solutions he discusses are amongst the topics being discussed on a regular basis by many involved at all levels of science (not that there aren’t some bias, corrupt or complacent scientists out there!)
This really good video on the Nature website (by Kerri Smith, the Nature podcast editor who also makes and presents the brilliant monthly Neuropod podcast which is well worth a listen). It features a succint and easy to understand explanation of the concept of epigenetics. The video covers so much ground in such an accessible way it could probably be used as a replacement for a two hour undergraduate lecture on the topic!
Also, talking of Neuropod and all things good for the ears, anyone in the UK can access the archive of a brilliant BBC radio 4 programme “The life scientific”. Physisist Jim Al Khalili who hosts the show interviews a different scientist on each episode, usually a very experienced scientist already some years in to their own careers who presumably have a lot of experience to impart, the interview is focussed on their own research but they also give insight in to the past, present and future of their chosen fields and the world of science in general.
You have probably already come across the very sad news that Oliver Sacks has been diagnosed with terminal cancer (quite old news now but its taken me a while to get round to writing this). Here is a piece he wrote in the New York Times recounting his response to the diagnosis and here is a great old (and satisfingly long) piece profiling Oliver Sacks and his work. Oliver Sacks must have inspired a huge number of current researchers with his brilliant writing of medical case studies, I’m sure some neurologists would have something to say about the technical merit of these case studies but purely for their engaging nature and for very much putting the human side of the disorders he examined at the forefront of his writing they certainly inspired my fledgling interest in neuroscience back when I was a teenager and before I even had a fully formed notion of what neuroscience was! My two favourite of his books were The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars.
On the subject of venerable older researchers here is a nature review of a coming book from one of the founding fathers of cognitive neuroscience (he literally wrote the book) Michael Gazzaniga. Michael Gazzaniga pioneered many ideas in cognitive neuroscience by studying split brain patients- that is patients where the corpus callosum has been severed in order to treat epilepsy, the corpus callosum being the bundle of fibres which connects the right and left hemispheres. The review is an interesting read not least because it touches on a topic of a certain amount of friction between Gazzaniga and Roger Sperry, a fellow neuroscientist and mentor of Gazzaniga's in split brain research. The friction seems to have at least some founding in recognition (or lack of) for ideas and discoveries- this is quite a common occurrence in science and there can be some tension involved in attributing proper recognition in papers probably because unfortunately with the current system of funding in research a persons career can be majorly effected depending on the perceived amount of input a scientist has. Unfortunately the article itself is behind a paywall so only those with some kind of institutional access will be able to get to it but I thought it was worth a mention for those who might have access.
This really good video on the Nature website (by Kerri Smith, the Nature podcast editor who also makes and presents the brilliant monthly Neuropod podcast which is well worth a listen). It features a succint and easy to understand explanation of the concept of epigenetics. The video covers so much ground in such an accessible way it could probably be used as a replacement for a two hour undergraduate lecture on the topic!
Also, talking of Neuropod and all things good for the ears, anyone in the UK can access the archive of a brilliant BBC radio 4 programme “The life scientific”. Physisist Jim Al Khalili who hosts the show interviews a different scientist on each episode, usually a very experienced scientist already some years in to their own careers who presumably have a lot of experience to impart, the interview is focussed on their own research but they also give insight in to the past, present and future of their chosen fields and the world of science in general.
You have probably already come across the very sad news that Oliver Sacks has been diagnosed with terminal cancer (quite old news now but its taken me a while to get round to writing this). Here is a piece he wrote in the New York Times recounting his response to the diagnosis and here is a great old (and satisfingly long) piece profiling Oliver Sacks and his work. Oliver Sacks must have inspired a huge number of current researchers with his brilliant writing of medical case studies, I’m sure some neurologists would have something to say about the technical merit of these case studies but purely for their engaging nature and for very much putting the human side of the disorders he examined at the forefront of his writing they certainly inspired my fledgling interest in neuroscience back when I was a teenager and before I even had a fully formed notion of what neuroscience was! My two favourite of his books were The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars.
On the subject of venerable older researchers here is a nature review of a coming book from one of the founding fathers of cognitive neuroscience (he literally wrote the book) Michael Gazzaniga. Michael Gazzaniga pioneered many ideas in cognitive neuroscience by studying split brain patients- that is patients where the corpus callosum has been severed in order to treat epilepsy, the corpus callosum being the bundle of fibres which connects the right and left hemispheres. The review is an interesting read not least because it touches on a topic of a certain amount of friction between Gazzaniga and Roger Sperry, a fellow neuroscientist and mentor of Gazzaniga's in split brain research. The friction seems to have at least some founding in recognition (or lack of) for ideas and discoveries- this is quite a common occurrence in science and there can be some tension involved in attributing proper recognition in papers probably because unfortunately with the current system of funding in research a persons career can be majorly effected depending on the perceived amount of input a scientist has. Unfortunately the article itself is behind a paywall so only those with some kind of institutional access will be able to get to it but I thought it was worth a mention for those who might have access.
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