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Modulated release of health risk information to the general public with the use of mnemonics

Bernard C K Choi

Population and Public Health Branch, Health Canada, AL no 6701A, 120 Colonnade Road, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 1B4, Canada; Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto; and Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, University of Ottawa, Canada; Bernard_Choi@hc-sc.gc.ca

Keywords: mnemonics; information

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The general public is overwhelmed by health risk information, as they are constantly being told about things that are not good for health. Even worse, these things are on a rapidly growing list. For example, recent health headlines in some leading newspapers read: Scars May Be Cancer Predictor, Persistent Heartburn Is a Cancer Warning Sign, High Fiber Diets Don’t Cut Colon Cancer, and there are many other similar ones.¹ The end result is that people will do nothing to improve their health because they are overwhelmed and do not know where to start. Health advice should not be dumped all at once to the general public but, instead, should be released in modulation. Information needs to be prioritised and disseminated in stages.

One example of health risk information that has been prioritised and made suitable for modulated release is found in chapter 4 of World Health Report 2002.² This chapter . . . [Full text of this article]

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