#844
My entry for this week on the HHS National Pandemic Flu Leadership Blog is now up.
Week 3: Getting the Job Done
What do I need to succeed in communicating the importance of preparing for a pandemic?
Convincing people to react to a threat isn’t always easy. When I was a paramedic, the average person with chest pain would wait several hours before calling an ambulance; sometimes six or ten hours! It wasn’t uncommon to respond to a cardiac arrest, and learn from a relative that the patient had been having chest pain for two days.
During a coronary, time=heart damage. The first 3 hours are critical.
Obviously, if a crushing pain in your chest doesn’t get your attention, an article on a possible pandemic or other disaster that might happen sometime in the future, tucked neatly away on page A-3 of your newspaper isn’t likely to spark much of a reaction.
Denial is a strong, and common, human reaction. We believe if we wait long enough most threats will pass. Or we talk ourselves into believing we are over reacting. Either way, we put ourselves at risk by not responding in a timely fashion.
Alarmed over the number...
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