Short thread:
When things work well, they are unnoticeable to the public.
This is especially true of public health efforts. When public health efforts work, they go unnoticed. As in policy, boring is better in public health.
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theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
When things work well, they are unnoticeable to the public.
This is especially true of public health efforts. When public health efforts work, they go unnoticed. As in policy, boring is better in public health.
1/x
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Unfortunately, this fact, that when public health is working well, it is unnoticed, necessarily sets them up to appear like they are failing.
The only time the public thinks about successful public health efforts is when they falter at all, especially if faltering is rare.
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The only time the public thinks about successful public health efforts is when they falter at all, especially if faltering is rare.
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This happens all the time with the most successful vaccines... b/c the only time highly successful vaccines make the news (outside of a pandemic) is when a rare adverse event occurs. We simply don't report the constant daily successes of the best working programs.
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3/x
The same thing with testing programs to prevent outbreaks.
If a testing program prevents 99% of outbreaks - these will NOT be discussed in the media.
But the 1% of the time that a small outbreak occurs, it is discussed... causing a false denominator in the publics mind...
4/x
If a testing program prevents 99% of outbreaks - these will NOT be discussed in the media.
But the 1% of the time that a small outbreak occurs, it is discussed... causing a false denominator in the publics mind...
4/x
We saw this with the WH RoseGarden event.
Although the WH prevented any outbreaks for over 200 days... the only time outbreaks inside the WH were discussed was when an outbreak did happen - but not all of the days an outbreak did not happen....
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Although the WH prevented any outbreaks for over 200 days... the only time outbreaks inside the WH were discussed was when an outbreak did happen - but not all of the days an outbreak did not happen....
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This ultimately caused the public to conclude that a rapid testing "entrance screening" program in the WH was a total and complete failure. To this day it is held up as evidence that rapid tests don't work.
But in reality it failed <1% of the days & succeeded >99% of days
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But in reality it failed <1% of the days & succeeded >99% of days
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This is a perpetual problem of public health - the better it works, the more scrutiny is placed on rare negative events.
This begs for the media to TRY to report on at least some successes
(Sometimes successes are widely reported - largely owing to positive trials)
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This begs for the media to TRY to report on at least some successes
(Sometimes successes are widely reported - largely owing to positive trials)
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So when we see headlines or fingers pointing to an event as evidence that a whole program doesn't work... try to ask the question - "How many times is it working but I'm just not noticing".
Obviously we should be using this thought process in so many parts of life too...
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Obviously we should be using this thought process in so many parts of life too...
8/8
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