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
2024-08-08
22
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] People will change their ideas about the dangers involved in smoking or not wearing seat belts, when they are ______.
选项
答案
frightened
解析
参见倒数第二段第四句。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3711508.html
相关试题推荐
健康对我们来说是最重要的。绝不可忽视。(onnoaccount)Healthisofutmostimportancetousandonno
—NosoonerhadIturnedinthepaperthanIrememberedtheanswertoQuestionNu
TheSupremeCourt’sdecisionsonphysician-assistedsuicidecarryimportant
TheSupremeCourt’sdecisionsonphysician-assistedsuicidecarryimportant
TheSupremeCourt’sdecisionsonphysician-assistedsuicidecarryimportant
TheSupremeCourt’sdecisionsonphysician-assistedsuicidecarryimportant
Healthexpertspointoutthatabudget-crunchedpublicschoollosesalotwheni
Rearrangethemuddledlettersincapitalstomakeaproperword.Theanswerwill
Whyisitsaidthattheeconomyishealthywith20millionunemployed?[br][or
Whyisitsaidthattheeconomyishealthywith20millionunemployed?[br][or
随机试题
SpeakerA:You’dbettertaketheumbrellawithyou.Itlookslikeit’sgoingto
关于疟疾检查的适宜采血时间,下列哪项是错误的A.间日疟发作后数小时 B.间日疟
《公路水运工程淘汰危及生产安全施工工艺、设备和材料目录》是为防范化解公路水运重大
A.脉搏短绌 B.水冲脉 C.奇脉 D.颈静脉搏动 E.交替脉心包积液,
A.逍遥散 B.真人养脏汤 C.易黄汤 D.桑螵蛸散 E.参苓白术散治疗
理财规划师在分析客户需求时,了解客户的财务状况非常重要,()属于客户的财务信息。
电气设备的倒闸操作应严格遵守()等要求进行。安规$;$调规$;$现场运行规
甲公司向银行借款100万元,乙、丙提供保证。根据合同法律制度规定,下列说法中,不
根据《行政许可法》,下列关于行政许可期限或者费用制度的表述中,正确的有()。A
某线路采用双地线,导线采用双分裂LGJ—400/35钢芯铝绞线,为解决系统通信问
最新回复
(
0
)