Source: careandgrowth.com
As physicians, we are often confronted and challenged by corporate companies, individuals, and even our own leaders. Among others, this can be clearly seen among Tobacco companies. They keep pressing that they are selling a legal product. Alcohol companies, on the other hand, emphasize that the community should drink responsibly and alcohol companies should not be blamed in the event if someone abuses their products.
Car companies say that the key to greater safety on the road is changes in drivers’ behaviour and that car companies should not be blamed if the safety features does not reach the end users satisfaction.
Well, now the real question arises. How do we plan to fight this battle? Do we plan to grumble and express our dissatisfaction that our community is not listening to us? We are the doctors! We know more!!!
Let me explain….
We should learn to gain our people’s trust. Remember, changing a person’s behaviour is never easy. If a person does not recognize the need for a change or simply does not want to change, they cannot be changed. We could force them, through positive or negative reinforcement, but that would not last long.
Secondly, the person’s willingness to understand the root cause of his own behaviour. It is important because behaviours are seen as the result of something deep, a person’s memory, a person experience and almost everything one has learned and developed at an early age. One has to revisit that age, or at least the feelings you and I had at the time when that particular behaviour was born, in order to fundamentally change it. So stop blaming our patients if they cannot change, instead work on a strategic manner to address this issue.
Thirdly, it is a person’s individual commitment to get out of his comfort zone in order to set new goals in his life, and this requires discipline and effort. It is simply inconvenient to force someone to choose a new behaviour that does not come naturally over a behaviour that is second nature to him/her. It is like re-educating someone to always walk backwards. It would be frustrating and difficult to remember to always put one foot behind the other in order to walk backwards as it is not our natural behaviour. It would take a lot of commitment in order to get used to it. That is essentially what behavioural change is. Now the question is, how are we supposed to change our community’s behaviour in order to fight dengue, obesity, and the rising pattern of non-communicable disease in our country?
Remember, if we do not tackle any one of these steps carefully, trust me, behavioural change will never happen.
So how do we speak the public health language and convince our community and leaders?
The language you speak and the message you convey is important because how an issue is described, or framed, can determine the extent to which it has popular or political support. The way we speak and the message we deliver communicates our thoughts and ideas to our people, and certain words and phrases shape the way people think about an issue.
Before determining what to say or what to change, public health advocates must determine what they want to change in concrete terms, the more specific, the better (Chapman, 2001; Themba, 1999).
Always bear in mind that the population’s health is dependent not only on the language and message we use but also the environments in which they make those choices. In a nutshell, it is important that we as physicians and health educators go for evidence-based strategies that can guide our practice. It is clearly seen that some health educators are making choices based on values, and not science in order to convince our community. We need the right measuring tool to measure our progress in behavioural change. If we can articulate values and balance scientific strategy trust me, we will be able to transmit coherent, consistent, and compelling messages to our community.
Dr Dhesi BR is the President of MIMPA and Founder of The Malaysian Medical Gazette. He is also currently pursuing his doctorate in Public Health. He recently won the prestigious Singularity Global Impact Competition 2015 and will be heading to the Silicon Valley, USA to represent Malaysia in NASA.
[This article belongs to The Malaysian Medical Gazette. Any republication (online or offline) without written permission from The Malaysian Medical Gazette is prohibited.]