251677 How history can help us improve approaches for communicating uncertainty around emotionally and politically charged issues

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Michael Yudell, PhD, MPH , School of Public Health, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA
This roundtable will consider how historical methods and an understanding of history can inform the ways in which environmental risk messages are communicated and understood. This table will focus specifically on the shifting etiological findings in autism research since 1943, and the lessons learned from these events will be explored.

Learning Areas:
Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Advocacy for health and health education
Assessment of individual and community needs for health education
Communication and informatics
Ethics, professional and legal requirements
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
1) Describe one example of how history can help to improve communication around emotionally and politically charged issues. 2) Understand how the history of autism spectrum disorders can inform contemporary risk communication challenges for at least one other environmental health concern.

Keywords: Health Communications, Environmental Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am qualified to present because I am doctorally trained as an historian, and my research focuses on using historical methods to understanding risk communication and ethics in public health. I have written two books on the human genome project, and a book on the history of the race concept. I am currently writing a book on the history of ASDs.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.