Measles is one of the leading causes of death amongst children worldwide. In 2012, an estimated 122,000 people died of the disease according to the World Health Organization – equivalent to 14 deaths every hour. Yet talk to parents about this highly infectious disease, and the response is often a resounding “meh”. Why is this?
University of Michigan Professor Brian Zikmund-Fisher explores this in the latest video from Risk Bites – at under 3 minutes long, it’s a fantastic introduction to why seemingly rational people sometimes behave the way they do toward vaccines.
According to Zikmund-Fisher, how we think about infectious diseases and risk is governed in part by the way our memories and feelings inform our perceptions – this is referred to by psychologists as the “availability heuristic”. It turns out that when we try and figure out how rare or common a disease is, we try to think of people we have heard of who have had it. If we know of people, we’re pre-programmed to feel more at risk than if we don’t. And surprisingly, the statistics – the actual numbers of people who get sick – don’t seem to matter.
You can watch Brian’s video and others on the science behind human health risks at youtube.com/riskbites. Brian can also be seen talking about risk, feelings and vaccines in the new NOVA documentary Vaccines – Calling The Shots, airing Wednesday September 10 at 9:30/8:30C.
Image: Sixteenth century Aztec drawing of a measles victim. Source: (2009) Viruses, Plagues, and History: Past, Present and Future, Oxford University Press, USA, p. 144 ISBN: 0-19-532731-4.