After reading Milton’s Chapter 14, I found Section 14-6 (Risk Communication) to be interesting, particularly when appling it to today's media. In this age of media inundation, and sometimes overload, it is easy to feel like everything you do, eat, drink, breath, or touch can be hazardous. After listening to the nightly news (or even taking some of these ETM classes), it makes it easier to understand why some people might want to live in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, grow their own food, drink from a private well, and just steer clear of humanity in general. But how do we know when to ignore the risk depicted in these frightening newscasts, and when to prepare? Like section 14-7 reads, “…the public will often express more concern with the possible magnitude of the worst case scenario, either not understanding or electing to ignore how unlikely if not incredible it may be” (Milton, 894). Remember in 2009 when we all waited to come down with the H1N1 flu? If you watched the news or read a newspaper, it felt like there was no way to escape that risk. We heard stories every night about how many people were infected, and how many more died. As that flu season came and went an interesting trend started to emerge: it turned out H1N1’s bark may have been worse for Americans that its bite. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) the reported number of deaths attributed to H1N1 from April 2009 to January 2010 was 2,498 (http://www.cdc.gov/H1Nflu/hosp_deaths_ahdra.htm#5). If you’re one of the nearly 2,500 families that dealt with one of these deaths, the statistics become unimportant. If you’re the average American not personally affected though, they matter. According to the Flu.gov website, which receives its information from a variety of government sources included the CDC, the estimated number of US deaths from the seasonal influenza virus averages at about 36,000 deaths per year (http://pandemicflu.gov/individualfamily/about/seasonalflu/). Interestingly, further research found that the 36,000 deaths per year is the average for the over 30 years the numbers were being compiled by the CDC. In other words, it is not that an average of 36,000 people die from the flu each year, rather, that between 1971 and 2007 the number of deaths ranged from about 4000 deaths per year to 49,000 deaths per year, resulting in the 36,000 average that is often cited (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/us_flu-related_deaths.htm). Granted, the comparison I’m making here is exactly apples to apples, the H1N1 number doesn’t account for a 12-month average, rather only from April to January. Considering even the lowest number of deaths per year from the seasonal flu virus (4000 in the early 1970s), that number is still nearly twice what H1N1 accounted for during the 2009 flu season. That’s a lot of wasted airtime from news agencies. Or is it?
Hindsight is 20/20, so they say. Perhaps all the media attention and information made widely available to the public made the effects of H1N1 less detrimental than they would have been otherwise. After all, as of December 2009, an estimated 43 million people had received the H1N1 vaccine in the US (http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/in_the_news/influenza_vaccination.htm). Or, maybe the media hyped the CDC’s concerns to the point of paranoia. By August of 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO) had already declared an end to the H1N1 pandemic. Margaret Chan, WHO director general stated, “We expect the H1N1 virus to take on the behaviour of a seasonal influenza virus and continue to circulate for some years to come” (http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/08/10/who-h1n1-swine-flu-pandemic.html#ixzz0ybG6R1mj). A statement that seems fairly unthreatening compared to the news accounts in the Spring of 2009.
The effectiveness of risk communication is a fine line to walk. The public must be made aware of hazards, and how to prevent encountering these risks, but without unnecessary fear and panic.
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