"Health, Risk & Society"

Taylor, George; Power, Martin P.

doi: 10.1080/13698575.2010.515735pmid: N/A

With Ireland's blood supply compromised in the 1980s, the impact upon its haemophiliac community was unprecedented. Thus far, academic attention has focused on apportioning blame and identifying administrative failure: what the government knew about Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and Hepatitis C; and when the blood supply was compromised. Our task is to explain why the crisis emerged. We maintain it was not an issue of risk management, but risk assessment. Prior to the 1970s, decisions about risk were refracted through government channels (ministers, civil servants and medico-scientific experts, i.e. the realm of the political/legal). By the 1980s, risk assessment/management were separated and Government was predisposed to accept market decisions (the realm of the economic/legal). Here intervention is recognised as legitimate only if a risk is established and, even then, it must be proportionate. A balance must be struck between competing objectives: safety, innovation, cost, competitiveness and free trade. Crucially, this reform precluded a precautionary approach.

Silva, Susana; Machado, Helena

doi: 10.1080/13698575.2010.515734pmid: N/A

In this article we explore the results of interviewing Portuguese couples involved in unsuccessful in vitro fertilisation (IVF) programmes. We argue that the references to uncertainties and risks of IVF procedures and their implications in the mobilisation and in the actions of different social and/or professional groups should be central topics in the debates of biomedicine and bioethics in a broader sense and in local ethics of clinical research and doctor–patient relationships. These debates should incorporated the experiences of women and men who try to have a biological child by using these techniques and produce reflection about the social, cultural, technical and medical changes that will be necessary so that these technologies are increasingly successful. The medical recognition of uncertainties, risks and complications can be an important element underlying a patient-friendly medicine, because it could minimise the feeling that many patients might have, especially women, that they are to blame.

Barilli, Elisa; Savadori, Lucia; Pighin, Stefania; Bonalumi, Sara; Ferrari, Augusto; Ferrari, Maurizio; Cremonesi, Laura

doi: 10.1080/13698575.2010.515667pmid: N/A

In risk communication to patients, Medical Doctors frequently use analogies attempting to enhance the otherwise poor comprehension of small probabilities by laypeople. Two experiments examined the effects of the verbal analogy (asking patients to figure out the probability of an outcome by imagining the chance to draw a winning ball from a jar) on individuals' probability perception by means of seven-point Likert scales. Study 1 showed that the employment of the verbal analogy reduced the perceived likelihood of the hypothetical event under judgment both in the positive (winning a 1 million Euro lottery) and in the negative domain (contracting malaria travelling to Africa). In Study 2, two possible versions of the verbal analogy (forced vs. weak) were tested on the perceived risk of contracting hepatitis A travelling to Africa. Results indicated that individuals' risk perception was decreased by the analogy only in the forced condition. The authors discuss possible explanations for this effect.

Clarke, Juanne N.

doi: 10.1080/13698575.2010.515737pmid: N/A

This paper reports on an exploratory, qualitative content analysis of the portrayal of the risk of sexually transmitted infections or diseases (STIs or STDs) and sexuality in the United States (US) versions of the most popular women's magazines in the world, the English language magazines for young women Cosmopolitan (Cosmo) and Glamour from 2000–2007. The data studied here demonstrate contradictory messages. On the one hand, there is a frequent and powerful portrayal of STIs and STDs as ubiquitous, dangerous, and disgusting, and on the other, there are numerous stories promoting casual sex for women's pleasure. Biomedicine is positioned as the most appropriate system of knowledge for understanding and explaining sexuality and STIs/STDs. The substantive, theoretical, and practical consequences of this paradoxical and contradictory social construction of sexuality and the risk of STIs or STDs are discussed as the major contributions of this paper.

Shaw, Rachel L.; Whitehead, Claire; Giles, David C.

doi: 10.1080/13698575.2010.515736pmid: N/A

This study analysed news media content to examine the role played by celebrity drug use in young people's perceptions of drug use. We know that young people have access to discourses of drug use through music and other media which may emphasise short term gains (of pleasure or sexual success) over longer term health and social problems. This study goes beyond a simple modelling approach by using Media Framing Analysis (MFA) to take an in-depth look at the messages themselves and how they are ‘framed’. New stories about Amy Winehouse's drug use were used and we conducted focus groups with young people asking them questions about drugs, celebrity and the media. Frames identified include: ‘troubled genius’, ‘losing patience’ and ‘glamorization or gritty realism’. Initially, the press championed Winehouse's musical talent but soon began to tire of her recklessness; the participants tended to be unimpressed with Winehouse's drug use, characterising her as a promising artist who had ‘gone off the rails’. Young people were far more critical of Winehouse than might be expected, demonstrating that concerns about the influence of celebrity drug use and its impact on future health risk behaviour among young people may have been over-simplified and exaggerated. This study illustrates the need to understand young people and their frames of reference within popular culture when designing drug awareness information relevant to them. Furthermore, it indicates that critical media skills analysis may contribute to health risk education programmes related to drug use.