Health underlies everything we do. Not "health care" but health.
Our well being. Think safety and joy and comfort food.
Our environment. Remember Love Canal?
Our behaviors. Think "exercise".
Our food and exercise and social connections. Our community resiliency and survival network.
But politics and economics soon enter the health equation.
Here's a health idea that Democrats and Republicans agree on: when
given information on the genetic factors that cause diabetes, both
parties equally supported public health policies to prevent the
disease.
But a study designed by the University of Michigan
showed Republicans were less supportive of such policies after reading
news reports that people with diabetes got their illness because of
social or economic factors in which they live, such as lack of
neighborhood grocery stores or safe places to exercise. The social
factors increased Democrats' support.
"When
people are given the same information they can come away with very
different opinions," says Sarah E. Gollust, Ph.D., a Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar at the University of
Pennsylvania who worked on the study during her doctoral work at U-M.
Increasing
public awareness of social factors that impact health may not uniformly
increase public support for action because some groups simply do not
believe they are credible, authors write.
Social Values Influence Policy...surprised?
"Policymakers and
journalists should be aware that social values influence people's
opinions about health policy, and certain messages in the media might
trigger these values," she says.
The findings contribute to
evidence that Americans' opinions about health policy are polarized by
political party lines, according to the study.
Gollust designed
the study with Paula Lantz, Ph.D., a social epidemiologist and chair of
the Department of Health Management and Policy at the U-M School of
Public Health and Peter A. Ubel, M.D., professor of internal medicine
at the University of Michigan and director of the U-M Center for
Behavioral and Decision Sciences in Medicine.
Diabetes News and Policy Research
Study participants
viewed news articles about type 2 diabetes on the Internet and then
answered questions about their opinions on health policy and their
attitudes about people with diabetes.
When each viewed an
article on the links between social and neighborhood factors and
diabetes, 32 percent of Democrats agreed with social factors' role on
health compared to 16 percent of Republicans.
Polarizing Information
"If you are more
liberally minded the 'neighborhood explanation' can be motivating, but
for people who are more conservative politically, that message can
backfire and make them even less interested," says Ubel. "The same
information can polarize people."
Diabetes was merely used as an example of a common health issue.
Social and Economic Factors ... and Health
While
type 2 diabetes is associated with health behaviors, such as poor diet,
lack of physical activity and obesity, these behavioral factors can be
influenced by social and economic factors such as living in an
unhealthy neighborhood.
Genetic Factors... and Health
Scientists have also identified numerous
genetic variants that increase susceptibility to type 2 diabetes.
Non-medical Strategies for Health Care
So
why focus on social factors? The goal of framing health matters
according to social factors is increasingly used to shift attention to
non-medical strategies to improve health. The media also commonly
discuss the prevalence of social factors when describing health issues,
but few studies have been devoted to whether it shifts public opinion.
Messages in the Media
"The problem is these messages aren't going to have the same effect on all people," Ubel says.
The
authors do not suggest that news media avoid reporting on social
factors. Rather, advocates who want to mobilize the public to support
public health policies might consider disseminating information to the
media about both social factors and individual behavioral causes to
avoid triggering resistance.
Messaging Options
- Social factors
- Individual behavioral causes
- Physical science
- Economic data
Tailored Messages for Audiences?
Isn't tailoring messages close to manipulation? Writers and message makers all have to pick and choose what is included and excluded from our final message products ... but blatant manipulation to affect advocacy goals is not in our shared best interest.
"Advocacy groups need to be very
careful in thinking about who their audience is and what framing will
work best for that audience," Ubel says. "Media should do a richer job
of helping people understand each of these different causes."
Authors: Sarah E. Gollust, Ph.D., Paula M. Lantz, Ph.D., and Peter A. Ubel, M.D.
Citation: American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 99, No. 12, December 2009
Funding:
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholars Program at
the University of Michigan and at the University of Pennsylvania, the
U-M Center for Behavioral and Decision Sciences in Medicine, and the
University of Michigan Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship.
Resources:
U-M Center for Behavioral and Decision Sciences
http://www.cbdsm.org/
U-M School of Public Health
Department of Health Management and Policy
http://www.sph.umich.edu/hmp/
Source: Newswise, Inc.