Episode Transcript
Interviewer: It often feels like there's a disconnect between scientists and the public. We'll talk about that next on The Scope.
Announcer: Examining the latest research and telling you about the latest breakthroughs. The Science and Research Show is on The Scope.
Interviewer: I'm talking with Dr. Christy Porucznik, Associate Professor in Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of Utah. When it comes to science and the public perception of science, there can be a disconnect, and I think the example of climate change and global warming is pretty obvious. But you have some interesting examples of how this can also play out at the local level. Can you talk about one of those?
Dr. Christy: You know we watch a lot of crime shows on TV where people can go in and just swab the walls and investigate things and know everything that happened in that room. A few years ago, there's was concern about what firefighters might be exposed to if they responded to homes where there had been methamphetamine cooking, and a request for a study, a one year study, in order to figure out what was going on with those firefighters. What were they exposed to and what might the health risks be?
This was a problem because just doing a study for one year would be unlikely to capture the wide range of exposures and potential health outcomes that might happen years in the future from those exposures. So it was a disconnect that the public thought, "Science should be able to solve this," and science said, "Whoa, this is way too complicated to solve in one year. We need more time."
Interviewer: So yeah, it seems like there are a few different levels here. Communicating to the public is certainly one of them. What about communicating to policymakers? Why might that be important?
Dr. Christy: Communicating to policymakers can be very important because they can be the ones who are driving the budgets of the funding agencies. They can also be the ones who are setting regulations that may affect what research we are able to do and if you need a law or a real changed in order to do your study, maybe to work with stem cells, then you're going to need legislators on your side understanding why your work is important.
Interviewer: And I'm wondering if this is something that you've had experience with.
Dr. Christy: When I was in grad school no one ever prepared me for the fact that I would have to get a law changed in order to do my research, but I did. I was working on the problem of prescription drug overdose in Utah and I wanted to use the controlled substance database, which at the time I couldn't use and I wind up interacting with legislators testifying before both houses of the Utah Congress in getting the law changed to allow researcher access to that database.
It was an amazing experience because the questions that I thought they would ask were not the questions that they asked, and it really made me think from a different perspective of what the work was going to be and why it was important.
Interviewer: Now did you think those were good questions and just helped you think in a different way or were they kind of irrelevant questions?
Dr. Christy: It was just really a difference of perspective. The concerns of the legislators were, "Well, are you going to look me up?" So it made me realize I needed to explain the aim of this study and the way that we work more, so that they would understand that the purpose was not to witch hunt or to find out what my neighbors were doing, but the purpose was to say as a population what are we doing in terms of these drugs? And once I could communicate that the resistance to changing the law went away.
Interviewer: What are some ways that we can reach out to policymakers specifically?
Dr. Christy: So believe it or not you can reach out to policymakers specifically. If you know that something that you're working on is coming up in a congressional hearing or there's going to be a revision of a guideline, you could put together an executive summary of relevant work and send it to someone on that committee's staff. You could call and say, "I can be available if there are questions about this."
We often don't think about doing reach out like that because as scientists we feel like once our work is in the scientific literature, well, it's there. Anyone can find it. But not anyone can find it. And it's not just because sometimes we published in journals that are behind paywalls, it's that the person who is the staffer for the senator may not even think to look in PubMed.
Interviewer: I guess what this is really about is kind of closing the loop. I think often scientists do their work and let other scientists know about it, and then move onto the next thing. But they really can't expect change unless they help to see that it gets to the next level.
Dr. Christy: We think about translational medicine of things from bench to bedside and clinic to community in terms of how our work might inform medical practice, but if we can't talk to you the larger audience then we may be missing a step. Communication is a skill and it's not one that we train very well, but it's one that can be learned and needs to be practiced in order to get better and feel more comfortable. Many scientists are introverts. They never want to be the person that people are paying attention to, but if it turns out that that needs to be your role, well, you can learn to do it better.
And I would just encourage anyone who finds himself in the position of people asking them questions to think about how they can practice for those experiences in the future, because if it's happened once it will happen again.
Announcer: Interesting, informative, and all in the name of better health. This is The Scope Health Sciences Radio.