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
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] This article discusses why people fail to make good ______.
选项
答案
decisions
解析
参见文章最后一句。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3711509.html
相关试题推荐
Amanis48yearsold.Heaskstheothermanhowoldheis.Theothermananswer
TheSupremeCourt’sdecisionsonphysician-assistedsuicidecarryimportant
TheSupremeCourt’sdecisionsonphysician-assistedsuicidecarryimportant
TheSupremeCourt’sdecisionsonphysician-assistedsuicidecarryimportant
TheSupremeCourt’sdecisionsonphysician-assistedsuicidecarryimportant
TheSupremeCourt’sdecisionsonphysician-assistedsuicidecarryimportant
Guesstheanswertotheriddle.There’sawordthat’scomposedofthreelet
TheheadquartersofTheWorldHealthOrganization(WHO)andtheWorldTradeOrga
健康对我们来说是最重要的。绝不可忽视。(onnoaccount)Healthisofutmostimportancetousandonno
TheSupremeCourt’sdecisionsonphysician-assistedsuicidecarryimportant
随机试题
1999年10月中国国际广播电台开始制作国际新闻电视节目,其通过哪一号卫星向全国
蛋白质主要以下列哪种形式吸收()A.多肽 B.寡肽 C.二肽和三肽 D.
"益火之源,以消阴翳"是指A.以阴中求阳之法调整阴阳偏衰B.以阳中求阴之法调整阴
一位初孕50天的妇女,在“妇儿卫生保健咨询日”向护士咨询,孕期哪段时间应禁止性生
高压断路器电磁操动机构的合闸回路可按()倍的额定合闸电流选择,但直流断路
社会福利机构向董事会、管理人员和前线工作人员等作交代,这属于社会服务机构的()
“金砖五国”与“新钻11国”统称为新兴经济体,这些国家目前在经济发展方面的共同特
牙挺使用的原则中不包括A.不可以邻牙作支点,除非邻牙一并拔除 B.颌水平的颊舌
“统计”一词的主要含义不包括()。A.统计工作 B.统计学 C.统计年鉴
建筑工程一切险承保的危险与损害涉及面很广,但按国际惯例,下列情形属于除外情形的是
最新回复
(
0
)