Does knowledge help in promotion of Blue Sky Campaign?

Copyright South China Morning Post Ltd. Mar 22, 2007: A study by the Environmental Protection Department released in 2002 found that more than 80 per cent of polluting emissions came from the region.

In contrast, university scientists used air quality monitors in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta, wind data from the Observatory and satellite pictures to confirm the sources of air pollution. They also found that local sources played the biggest role in pollution from April to August, whereas regional sources affected air quality mainly in winter, from November to March.


Does knowledge help in promotion of BLUE SKY?

Who shall we target the promotion program to? How should we propose it? In the sight of the Expatriates, Government, People? Which group will serve to be more effective in this communication?

The government had been reserve in concluding the problem,what had been troubling their mind?

All these things would need to be considered and addressed, before we can run a effective program. Knowing who to target, what kind of strategy that we should approach, and time for pushing and holding back, would be a key to more likely to success with reduced wasted efforts and manpower.

When Rabbies Attack

Rabies deah toll promts warning of new dog cull. Hunan-Deputy Hunan governor Gan Lin has announced plans to kill all dogs hat have not been vaccinated against rabies. Sixty-one people in the province died from the disease in the first two months of this year, Xinhua reports.

An announcement of "Killing all dogs that have not been vaccinated against rabies" would be an effective healh education from the local official.

First of all, there are as much as 61 victims that died from the disease in the first 2 months of this year, certainly this is an public health issue, and clearly something that has to be done!

Taking action on the unvaccinated dogs, will result increase of awareness of the public against rabies.
The act/ annoucement would result a several attitude and responses of the public:
1) The dog owners will make sure if their dogs were vaccinated.
2) Strangers will stay away from the stray dogs, or any dogs which they are not familiar with.
3) People will start taking precautions when they see dogs.
4) People will be aware that what going on was serious enough for such action to be taken.
5) People will be alarmed to take immediate action once bitten by dog.


I think that is a good step of public health promotion and intervention.

Perhpas one thing that I would suggest to this, is set up poles in different areas, with a sign, "Beware of dogs! Beware of Rabies!". :-)

Communication of risk

In communication of risk, we are not to mislead people. It cost dignity, justice, trust and worthiness when we are caught in misleading people.

In US we know the government control information in order to control the people. And the reputation of Tony Blaire gone down to the pit because he misled the people in the decision on Iraq. Hiding information does no good at all.

Acknowledge lay value within a particular cultural context

In the book of "RISK", it was mentioned, 'lay responses to risk should not be considered as erroneous or biased if they different from expert assessments. Rater their use and value within a particular cultural context needs to be acknowledge.' (pg.37)

The perception of air pollution in Hong Kong is significantly different between the expatriates and locals, professionals health expert and government. The locals agree that the air pollution is much of a illusion because culturally they have no regards towards the environment to the economic trade-off. Economy is being given more concern than the air condition. And even if there is a problem, we have nothing to do with it, and we can't anything with it.

'Rather, their use and value within a particular cultural context needs to be acknowledge.'Having this as a rule, what should a public health expert do then? How could we play our role?

Risk and Culture Theory. How about Homosexual?

" A refusal to take sound hygienic advice is not to be attributed to weakness of understanding. It is a preference. To account for preferences there is only cultural theory" Douglos (ibid.:103)

How do we explain people who choose bisexual or homosexual behavior when the risk of getting AIDS or sex transmitted disease would be significantly greater than the heterosexual?

If we need to analyze risk and behavior, does the behavior of bisexual or homosexual influenced by:
1. Individual choice?
2. Cultural theory?
3. Weakness of understanding the risk?
4. Peer Pressure?

Memories of Risk-Communication during Nipah Virus.

I remember about how our government communicate with the public on the event of Nipah virus in 1998.

It was "misclassified" as Japanese Encephalitis Virus and I remember how our "respective" health experts came on the TV and told the pig farmers to go back to their farm, nothing serious, you just need to take precaution, spray a lot of mosquitoes repellance, and don't panic!

More and more people died. There were different responses. Some wanted to give up their farm when they close friends died, something was very wrong. Some to prevent further lost, they smuggled their pigs from this farm to another.

The government representative said don't panic, it's not contagious, the vector is mosquitoes. Go back and tend your pigs. More died as a result of listening and obeying what they had said.

Then, the government decided to destroy the pigs in the affected farm, where cases were found, they killed the pigs by shooting. And then, they buried the pigs. Those people were wearing nothing less than what it required for a space battle. The astraunuts were there. And then, the next page of the news was again, it's JE.

The virologists knew something was very wrong, the veterinars formed meetings and helplines to help the farmers and investigated the issue. I was a 2nd year student in microbioloogy at that time. I remember the experts split into two groups, one supported the government findings, and agreed there was a mutation of the JE strain. Another was suspicious, and totally disagreed about it. I was disappointed with the government for totally ignoring the local experties on advices of "This is not JE, this is something real, something serious, and we need to do something!" The voice was ignored, and they waited for the microbiologist from Australia to come to confirm our scientist findings, before they made public announcement, or took any serious measurement.

As a result, several hundreds died. I lost my trust in our ability in risk communication, and I lost confidence in government when it comes to health issues. The death could had been avoided if the government took an early action. The measurements were very different in between JE and Nipah Virus.

They refused to tell the truth. But the emotional hazard was not less in the Chinese population in Malaysia. The threat was not reduced with the fake report. But rather, people downplayed it so much until it became unbearable.

It seems here that risk that the pig farmers needed to take in facing Nipah Virus in year 1999 was ignored or downplayed by the government while the citizens responded to with high anxiety, fear and anger.



Footnote: No one from the government resigned after the issue. No one took responsibility of this case. If risk is intimately related to notions of politics, particularly in relation to accountability, responsibility and blame, I didn't see it in Malaysia.