Communications at Risk 6-19-09

6-19-09 Communications at Risk

My youngest son, 24 year-old Eric, and I recently had an amusing moment of confusion as we failed to communicate while speaking only a few words each, both of us confident that we were making ourselves perfectly clear.
Eric was standing in the hallway near the door to my home office. He called me and I looked down the hallway. His voice is very low and can sound kind of monotone, so I am accustomed, as his mother, to hearing only slight fluctuations in his voice. I thought he said, “You have a mouse.” I panicked and screamed in response, “I do???!!!
Then, switching to non-verbal communication, Eric held his right hand out in the air, palm down, index finger sticking out, fingers slightly curved downward, while the whole hand moved in a slow and deliberate circular motion. Then, seeing the look of recognition on my face, he said with slow, calm and patient enunciation, “Do-you-have-a-mouse?”
I breathed a sigh of relief and laughed.
At least we realized the miss-communication early on. So often, we are completely unaware of the problem and we go on our way, confident our message was received just as we intended it to be. The truth of the matter is, it is not that easy to communicate effectively. Several decades ago, when I returned to college, one of the first Continuing Ed courses I took was “Communication”. Most of us have heard the statistics. Experts tell us that less than 10 percent of communication is verbal. Most of it is non-verbal. I suppose, as a human species, we are still evolving (hopefully) and our past involves far more experience in using all our senses to understand life. We test the waters, scope out the situation, sniff out the enemy, place our ear to the ground, observe discrepancies, catch the drift, have a finger on the pulse and sense the vibes. Compared to the last one hundred thousand years, we have just recently begun our attempts to verbalize what we are thinking and to understand others by listening to their spoken message and reading the written ones. It is not easy to get it right.
Some health agents have had the privilege of hearing Dr. Susan Santos speak about communication skills in her “Risk Communication” classes. She is an internationally recognized expert on communication, in particular, the skills needed to effectively communicate the actual risk of health threats to the public. That’s not easy either. In fact, it is downright difficult.
One key challenge to informing the public is trying to understand the public’s perception of the risk. If the risk is seen as minimal, public health authorities are mocked for their overreaction. If the risk is seen as great, there is a great outcry for more assistance when the public health authorities seem to be doing little to mitigate the problem. So, you see, how the message is received, has a great deal to do with whether or not the message is effective and how the message is received depends on how the receiver feels about the message.
The factors influencing our perception of risk is pretty interesting. You may have seen the list. We have stronger reactions of fear, concern, anger or anxiety if we see children as the victim (think EEE), if the problem is new (think WNv back in 2000), if the problem is not understood (think suicide bombers), if the enemy is ugly (think ticks compared to mosquitoes) and if it is out of our control (think acts of terrorism).
So it is with great concern and effort that boards of health attempt to craft their messages and the timing of their delivery. Even if we can find the right words and we think we are reminding and informing at the most critical times, we may discover that some portion of society feels fully informed already and another portion is tired of hearing so much about the same topic. Both will have turned their attention elsewhere.
In that case, the public health people are back at the beginning, wondering how to get and maintain the attention without alarming unnecessarily. That is where we are at with the H1 N1 virus. How are we doing?
You know what would help us? Feedback helps. When a message goes out, the receiver catches it, mulls it over and then reacts in one way or another. If you take the time to pass along that reaction, you then become the active conveyor of information. Feedback is a reality check, report card and a response with potentially useful information. Every time someone takes the time to call the commission, write the editor, email the agent, twitter the front desk, there is an increased chance of making improvements. Communication is an exchange of information and back and forth is superior to back and back or forth and forth.
So, as a professor of mine used to say, “Please, take my hand and we shall walk this journey together.” I mean, don’t really take my hand and we don’t have to really walk. Well, you know what I mean, don’t you?

Cathleen Drinan is the health agent for the Town of Halifax, MA. She does want the feedback. Really. She can be reached at 781 293 6768 or cdrinan@town.halifax.ma.us