David Raymond Amos @DavidRayAmos
Replying to @DavidRayAmos @alllibertynews and 49 others
https://davidraymondamos3.blogspot.com/2020/07/researcher-wants-to-know-if-new.html
#nbpoli #cdnpoli
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/emergency-visits-indicate-compliance-1.5664678
Researcher wants to know if New Brunswickers are slipping back into pre-COVID ways
Emergency room visits a good indication of adherence to warnings
· CBC News · Posted: Jul 28, 2020 8:00 AM AT
Emergency rooms across the country saw fewer patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)
Daniel Dutton wonders how long it took New Brunswickers to slip back into their pre-COVID habits.
The researcher with Dalhousie University's faculty of medicine in Saint John is looking at emergency room visits as an indicator of how closely people were following public health warnings.
Dutton says his findings could help governments tweak their future warnings for maximum effectiveness. He says there's a sweet spot between instilling too much and too little fear in people.
"The idea is that in the presence of another pandemic or an additional wave of this pandemic, that we would know how to manage messaging to decrease infection rates in our province," said Dutton, an associate professor in the department of community health and epidemiology.
Dutton is one of several New Brunswick researchers to receive money for COVID-19-related projects.
In March, the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, in partnership with the New Brunswick Health Research Foundation (NBHRF), launched a COVID-19 Research Fund and invited researchers to apply — which they did in droves.
Researcher Daniel Dutton will look at emergency room visits during the pandemic as an indicator of how closely people were adhering to public health warnings. (Submitted by Daniel Dutton)
They received 60 applications and requests for $2.3 million in funding, which was more money than they had available.
That's when the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency stepped in to provide more money. In total, 27 projects across the province have been approved — to the tune of $846,707.
Dutton's project, entitled "The half-life of public health messages on infection control behaviour in the general public" was one of the successful candidates.
"I want to know how long people stay focused on what we, as public health practitioners, wish they would do with respect to stopping the spread of COVID-19," he said.
"You see these stories of people having large gatherings and whenever that happens somebody from public health, or the premier, will say, 'Please don't do that. That's not what we're supposed to be doing.' And we don't really have a way to judge how well people are sticking to the rules."
Dutton said the polarized minorities have been vocal about whether they're willing to wear masks.
"But that doesn't really help us because we want to know whether or not we should change our public health messaging to make it stronger or perhaps more effective or perhaps we should mix it up and do some research into what it is about masks that are stopping people from wearing them."
Dutton said the best way is through a survey, but surveys are expensive and rely on accurate self-reporting. He said there are other ways of predicting how well people are adhering to the warnings, including emergency department visits.
A message of support hangs in the windows of the emergency department at University Hospital in London, Ont. (Colin Butler/CBC)
"The idea is that if people are avoiding the emergency room for what we would call low-acuity problems … maybe we would consider that to be successful public health messaging."
Dutton said there was a "large drop" in emergency room visits at the beginning of the pandemic — at least anecdotally.
He said there were reported cases of people staying home with serious medical conditions when they really should have gone to the emergency room.
Fast forward a couple of months and Premier Blaine Higgs was publicly chastising party-goers who were gathering in large groups, contrary to public health warnings that were still in place.
Dutton said those examples "underline exactly what it is we're trying to measure. We don't want to wait for those things to happen and then scold people, because it's not going to work. They've already gone to the party."
He plans to collect emergency room statistics from Horizon Health Network. When patients arrive at the ER, they're given a triage score based on the severity of their symptoms.
Dutton suspects the stats will show a quick drop in acuity early on and a slow return to normal levels as the number of cases in the province dropped off.
He will compare the fluctuations in acuity with the messages that were being delivered by health officials at the time. He hopes that will help determine what messages were being delivered effectively and which ones may have led to an over-reaction by patients.
New Brunswickers seemed to have followed public health warnings to avoid going to hospital emergency rooms early on in the pandemic. Researcher Daniel Dutton said that behaviour is a good indicator of the public's overall willingness to heed warnings. (Martin Trainor/CBC)
One interesting example, said Dutton, would be to look at what officials were saying that led people with serious health problems to stay away from the ER.
Knowing the effect that certain messages had on people's behaviours can help improve future messaging, he said.
Dutton suspects that New Brunswickers — thanks to relatively few cases in the province — slipped quite quickly back into their old ways.
"We've seen it from previous research on other infectious diseases, things like AIDS, is that if there's too much catastrophic messaging, people sort of give up, you know. They say, 'Oh well, it's going to happen to me anyway. I'm going to get COVID-19 anyway, so who cares?'
"So we need to figure out the sweet spot in between causing people to be on vigilant behaviour for their own health, and not giving up in the face of overwhelming negative messaging."
69 Comments
Commenting is now closed for this story.
David Amos:
Methinks it kinda comical how they rub their greedy nonsense in our faces N'esy Pas?
Ray Oliver
Reply to @David Amos: well when you gonna stop rubbing your bragging nonsense in our faces??
Ray Oliver
Reply to @David Amos: how Byron? How's anyone who you thought you've helped? SMART METERS!! they're coming for our thoughts!!
Justin Gunther
In other words the government will continue to double down out the outdated "Salesforcing" of "messaging" and access to deliberately limited and poorly communicated data and guidelines rather than transparency and plain truth, in order to instill the "appropriate amount of fear."
Good God please help us all. They're telling us what they're doing in no uncertain terms. This is the changeover from "representative democracy" to "blind allegiance to authoirty." We are being handled and our nanny knows best but few of us actually believe that. Game over.
If you have money and are in relatively good health look at investing in your own health equipment. It might take less than you think. The doctor of the future will be a person who follows algorithms in order to avoid lawsuits. Anybody can follow an algorithm and solve many of their own future medical problems through proactive preventative maintenance.
It might be cheaper and easier than you think if you're healthy and take care of yourself. Who wants to ever visit a hospital again with this "messaging?"
David Amos
Reply to @Justin
Gunther: Relax its just a circus that too many people are taking too
seriously for a bit. Sooner or later the light will dawn on their
marbleheads
James Edward
I hope they are. Look at the mortality stats. I'm concerned about dying in a motor vehicle crash than this bug.
David Amos
Reply to @James
Edward: Methinks I should be more concerned about having my old heart
attack me because of my constant laughing at the ongoing circus offered
to us by Higgy et al N'esy Pas?
James
Edward
Reply to @David Amos: The circus has been going on now for 2500 years...
Gerry Ferguson
I get a kick on how much taxpayer's money is spent on studies. In the end they don't change anything except the bank account of the person doing the study.
SarahRose Werner
Reply to @Gerry
Ferguson: Generally speaking, I agree that a lot more money is spent on
studies than the amount of change they produce. However, this is not
necessarily the *taxpayer's* money. New Brunswick Innovation
Foundation is a private foundation that uses venture capital to fund
research. Studies are also often funded by charitable foundations.
Furthermore, not all of the money stays in the researcher's pocket.
Some is put back into the economy as the researcher pays for
study-related expenses. Some may be used to hire research assistants,
thus creating jobs.
Koffi Babone
Reply to @Gerry Ferguson:
Where to start......
With regards to Covid-19, scientific studies publish findings that are peer reviewed. Public health agencies across the world will formulate recommendations/guidelines based on those studies. It then falls on the governments to either listen and follow/support those recommendations or to ignore them.
We have two very good examples of what happens when the advice is ignored or mocked.
We are lucky that in Canada, both federal and provincial governments fully support public health recommendations, they are after all the experts in that field. In NB, Dr Russel consults with the Public Health Agency of Canada 3 times a week.
Keep in mind that until the findings are published and peer reviewed, everything else is just a hypothesis or opinion (like that letter from over 200 scientists asking the WHO to declare SARS CoV-2 as being transmitted via aerosol). If those 200 or so scientists have proof, they need to publish the results so that others can look at the data.
So your statement that studies don't change anything is only true with regards to two countries. Incidentally, UNISaúde, a coalition of entities representing more than one million health workers in Brazil is accusing the Brazilian president of crimes against humanity......
Where to start......
With regards to Covid-19, scientific studies publish findings that are peer reviewed. Public health agencies across the world will formulate recommendations/guidelines based on those studies. It then falls on the governments to either listen and follow/support those recommendations or to ignore them.
We have two very good examples of what happens when the advice is ignored or mocked.
We are lucky that in Canada, both federal and provincial governments fully support public health recommendations, they are after all the experts in that field. In NB, Dr Russel consults with the Public Health Agency of Canada 3 times a week.
Keep in mind that until the findings are published and peer reviewed, everything else is just a hypothesis or opinion (like that letter from over 200 scientists asking the WHO to declare SARS CoV-2 as being transmitted via aerosol). If those 200 or so scientists have proof, they need to publish the results so that others can look at the data.
So your statement that studies don't change anything is only true with regards to two countries. Incidentally, UNISaúde, a coalition of entities representing more than one million health workers in Brazil is accusing the Brazilian president of crimes against humanity......
Koffi Babone
apologies, typo Dr Russell..
Koffi Babone
Reply to @SarahRose Werner:
"Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?"
Ronald Reagan, 1980 speech campaign.
"There is nothing which can better deserve
our patronage than the promotion of science
and literature. Knowledge is in every country
the surest basis of public happiness."
George Washington, address to Congress, Jan 8, 1790
In the demon-haunted world: science as a candle in the dark- Carl Sagan
"Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?"
Ronald Reagan, 1980 speech campaign.
"There is nothing which can better deserve
our patronage than the promotion of science
and literature. Knowledge is in every country
the surest basis of public happiness."
George Washington, address to Congress, Jan 8, 1790
In the demon-haunted world: science as a candle in the dark- Carl Sagan
David Amos
Reply to @Gerry Ferguson: BINGO
David Amos
Reply to @Koffi Babone: Surely you jest
James Risdon
Reply to @Gerry
Ferguson: Considering the WE scandal, it might be interesting so see
what connections there are between the people getting this funding and
the Liberal Party, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and the bureaucrats
handling the funding, whatever political party they happen to support.
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