Public health practitioners can learn from the weather forecasters
- 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; Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, University of Ottawa, Canada; Bernard_Choi@hc-sc.gc.ca
In Canada there is a Weather Network channel on the television that provides weather related information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This information is also available on the web site.1 I hope there will be a television channel for disseminating public health information to the general public in a similar way.
Firstly, public health practitioners can design universal non-word symbols to denote public health events. This is similar to, for example, the picture of a sun, a sun partly covered by clouds, or clouds with snow flakes, which can be easily understood by people speaking different languages.
Secondly, we …
