It’s no secret that I’m a big supporter of engaging the general public in science, so it’s been great to see the huge range of events that have been put on to celebrate National Science and Engineering Week– the theme for this year is ‘communication’. And fittingly, the Agency, in partnership with the Anaphylaxis Campaign, held a public conference on ‘Communicating the Science of Food Allergy’. The audience was a healthy mix, drawn from academia, the food industry and people with, or catering for, people with food allergy.
Part of the conference involved a lively panel debate on ‘the difficulty of communicating advice to the public where the science is uncertain or knowledge is developing’. As a communications man, I was particularly interested in the debate section that focused on how best to communicate uncertainty to the public or, should I say, publics? For what became evident is that different members of the public interpret and react quite differently to the same piece of advice. This is nothing new to us, but it reinforces the point that when it comes to communicating uncertainty, a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t necessarily suit all.
So what’s the best approach when it comes to deciding the best time to communicate new information? The general consensus was that scientists should be honest when they don’t have all the answers about a potential health risk, but they should communicate what information they do have and highlight the reasons for the uncertainty. Easier said than done, but do it we must.
However, we had a very engaged audience committed to a particular issue but their commitment to the unvarnished truth is slightly at odds with some consumer responses that Fiona Fox of the Science Media Centre has come across. And indeed some of our own consumer engagement at the Agency. This suggests that in many circumstances the average consumer wants to hear confident clear statements from scientists – after they have carefully checked their results and got a real consensus – and not before. Uncertain and woolly advice is not always appreciated, whatever our conference audience said.
What are your views? Would you rather be informed as soon as scientists think they know about a problem that could affect your health, or would you rather they obtained more robust evidence, got their work peer reviewed and communicated their findings once they have all the answers? Is there a time to communicate and a time to refrain from communicating (Turn! Turn! Turn!).