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Columnist
Questions The Basis On Which Epidemiology Colleagues Offer Risk Advice
Related To COVID-19
Briana Mezuk,
the University of Michigan epidemiologist who writes a column entitled
“Ask An Epidemiologist” for Psychology Today (see The Epi Monitor,
July 2019 issue) raises questions in her most recent column about the
basis on which epidemiologists give advice about risk and reopenings
and other COVID related matters. She is especially concerned about
advice which requires making judgments about tradeoffs as all risk
benefit decisions do.
Times Survey Of
Epidemiologists
In her column, Mezuk
recalls the New York Times article published earlier last summer which
surveyed more than 500 epidemiologists to ask them when they expect to
fly, hug and do 18 other everyday activities again. She questions
whether the respondents in the Times survey were asked about what
tradeoffs they were willing to make to stay safe.
According to Mezuk,
“…the Times did not conduct a survey of expert opinion. It conducted a
litmus test of whether you are the type of person who worries about
shark attacks whey you go to the beach or worries about a hijacking
when you get on a plane. You don’t need any expertise in epidemiology
to give a “valid” response to these questions because the responses
have little, if anything, to do with the expertise these people have.”
Evaluating Risk
Benefit Advice
Before judging the
value of any risk benefit based advice given by epidemiologists or any
other experts for that matter, Mezuk gives a sample of the type of
questions she would want to have answers to. These additional
questions are designed to evaluate a person’s experience, how much
control they think they have on their own risk, how accurately they
think about the true risks, and whether or not they are pessimistic or
optimistic about life in general. These personal and psychological
features of an expert’s life are influential in determining what kind
of advice is given, especially when data are lacking.
Mezuk concludes there
is simply too much dynamic uncertainty about this pandemic to rely on
data alone to make decisions. “The takeaway here is that data is
cheap, but information is priceless. What is the difference?
Information empowers your understanding and decision making. Data,
especially data without sufficient context, risks impairing it.”
To read the column,
visit:
https://bit.ly/3hOcl6b
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