首页
登录
职称英语
If asked, "What are health decisions?", most of us would answer in terms of
If asked, "What are health decisions?", most of us would answer in terms of
游客
2023-10-14
36
管理
问题
If asked, "What are health decisions?", most of us would answer in terms of hospitals, doctors and pills. Yet we are all making a whole range of decisions about our health which go beyond this limited area; for example, whether or not to smoke, exercise, drive a motorbike, or drink alcohol really. The ways we reach decisions and form attitudes about our health are only just beginning to be understood.
The main paradox is why people consistently do things which are known to be very hazardous. Two good examples of this are smoking and not wearing seat belts. Both these examples underline elements of how people reach decisions about their health. Understanding this process is crucial. We can then more effectively change public attitudes to hazardous, voluntary activities like smoking.
Smokers run double the risk of contracting heart disease, several times the risk of suffering from chronic bronchitis and at least 25 times the risk of lung cancer, as compared to non-smokers. Despite extensive press campaigns ( especially in the past 20 years) , which have regularly told smokers and car drivers the grave risks they are running, the number of smokers and seat belt wearers has remained much the same. Although the number of deaths from road accidents and smoking are well publicised, they have aroused little public interest.
If we give smokers the real figures, will it alter their views on the dangers of smoking? Unfortunately not. Many of the "real figures" are in the form of probabilistic estimates, and evidence shows that people are very bad at processing and understanding this kind of information.
The kind of information that tends to be relied on both by the smoker and seat belt non-wearer is anecdotal, based on personal experiences. All smokers seem to have an Uncle Bill or an Auntie Mabel who has been smoking cigarettes since they were twelve, lived to 90, and died because they fell down the stairs. And if they don’t have such an aunt or uncle, they are certain to have heard of someone who has. Similarly, many motorists seem to have heard of people who would have been killed if they had been wearing seat belts.
Reliance on this kind of evidence and not being able to cope with "probabilistic" data form the two main foundation stones of people’s assessment of risk. A third is reliance on press-publicised dangers and causes of death. American psychologists have shown that people overestimate the frequency (and therefore the danger) of the dramatic causes of death (like aeroplane crashes)and underestimate the undramatic, unpublicised killers (like smoking) which actually take a greater toll of life.
What is needed is some way of changing people’s evaluations of and attitudes to the risks of certain activities like smoking. What can be done? The "national" approach of giving people the "facts and figures" seems ineffective. But the evidence shows that when people are frightened, they are more likely to change their estimates of the dangers involved in smoking or not wearing seat belts. Press and television can do this very cost-effectively. Programmes like Dying for a Fag (a Thames TV programme) vividly showed the health hazards of smoking and may have increased the chances of people stopping smoking permanently.
So a mass-media approach may work. But it needs to be carefully controlled. Overall, the new awareness of the problem of health decisions and behaviour is at least a more hopeful sign for the future.
For answers 51-55, mark
Y (for YES) if the statement agrees with the information given in the passage;
N (for NO) if the statement contradicts the information given in the passage;
NG (for NOT GIVEN) if the information is not given in the passage. [br] That people are constantly doing things that are known to be dangerous to their health is a main ______.
选项
答案
paradox
解析
参见第二段第一句。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3096887.html
相关试题推荐
—WouldyoumindansweringafewquestionsforasurveyI’mdoing?—______—Howd
Writeanairpollutionreportinaround120wordsandwriteitontheanswershe
Aftermymotherpassedaway,mydadtriedevenhardertostayhealthyandac
Aftermymotherpassedaway,mydadtriedevenhardertostayhealthyandac
(91)Anactivelifestyleandahealthy,fish-richdietarenotonlygoodfo
(91)Anactivelifestyleandahealthy,fish-richdietarenotonlygoodfo
(91)Anactivelifestyleandahealthy,fish-richdietarenotonlygoodfo
Everytimeyoutrytoansweraquestionthataskswhy,youengageintheprocess
Whenonehasgoodhealth,_________shouldfeelfortunate.A、youB、theyC、heD、we
Selecttheanswer-pairthatexpressesarelationshipmostsimilartothatexpres
随机试题
BorninNorthCarolinain1862,WilliamSidneyPorter,thismasterofshort
Banksandotherfinancialinstitutionsare______(城市发展的促进因素).acontributingfacto
高等教育服务社会职能产生的背景是( )。A.《莫里尔法案》 B.《高等教育促进
关于忌口叙述错误的是A:服含人参的中成药,如人参健脾丸,不宜吃萝卜B:服含铁的
Thechangeinthatvillagewasmiraculou
可用于缓解绝经后更年期症状的药品是A、戊酸雌二醇片 B、他莫昔芬 C、地屈孕
下列药物可首选用于治疗流行性脑膜炎的是A:磺胺嘧啶 B:磺胺甲基异唑 C:
反诉:是指在已经提起的诉讼中,被告针对与原诉有联系的行为,提起独立诉讼请求的行为
第9列有两个数字相同,它对应的图形是什么?
某水泥混凝土路面部分面板断裂为4块,裂缝宽度0.5~3cm不等,板间错台1~2c
最新回复
(
0
)