What bad things did not happen to you yesterday?
Answering a question about what bad things did not happen is the challenge public health professionals face when sharing their successes. Describing what did not happen requires counterfactual thinking; defined as our brain’s efforts to generate thoughts about past events that are contrary to what actually occurred.
The possibilities of what did not happened are literally endless. Our brains are good at identifying obvious health threats like dangerous chemicals in the air or rashes on someone else's skin.?However, appreciating prevention policy is not something brains evolved to do, yet our safety as a population depends on it.
My goal is to have you think one or two times today about when public health policies protected you.?
For example, from 1980-2019 motor vehicle deaths per 100,000 Americans decreased significantly from 22 to 11. If a vehicle collision was avoided it was influenced by road designers, vehicle engineers, health researchers and policy makers. Perhaps a friend or family member had a medical procedure recently and avoided opioid addiction due to changes in opioid prescribing guidelines. Maybe a work colleague did not have a heart attack yesterday because improved nutrition or walkable neighborhoods reduced their risk.
When you reach for the fresh produce at the supermarket today, pause a brief moment and thank a public health professional that the food is available and safe.
Friends, please suggest other bad things that did not happen to you yesterday, and how it was avoided by thoughtful public health policy, design, or practice.
Program Director at OPERATION LIBERTY HILL
2 年We didn’t die in our beds of carbon monoxide poisoning because of the carbon monoxide detectors. I didn’t die nor beheaded by the windshield when in the bad car accident because I was wearing my seatbelt. The environment is cleaner because there are rubber guards on gas nozzles to reduce gas splash and drips. Not dying from the smoke of my house fire because we have smoke detectors. My house didn’t burn down because the aluminum wiring was changed to copper wiring. Not getting cancer because asbestos was not used in my building nor movie industry workers not getting cancer because asbestos isn’t used as a now in the movies anymore. Not getting cancer because BPA plastics are not in our food and drink containers anymore.