Author: Prasantha De Silva
Nudge it: II – Power of the opt-out default option
Think of a situation that you are automatically enrolled for organ donation when you obtain your vehicle license; however, you have the option to “opt-out”. This is a classic “opt-out” default option. Here, you are being nudged for organ donation. Its counterpart option is “opt-in”. In that situation, the default…
Nudge for behavior change- I: Use the E.A.S.T. tool
The above image is a typical road nudge. It draws road users’ attention to two choices; either go straight or turn. The word, nudge, refers to “prod (a gentle push) someone’s elbow gently to draw attention”. This post dips a toe into its ocean of knowledge base. A brief history…
Swiss Cheese Model for COVID-19
The Swiss Cheese Model for COVID 19 is an excellent mental tool to visualize COVID 19 prevention strategies at the system level, bird’s eye view. First, about the Swiss Cheese Model. As emphasized by James Reason, the model’s creator, it invites us to view human errors as a consequence, not…
Swiss Cheese Model and the Hot Cheese Model
The Swiss Cheese Model and the Hot Cheese Model revolutionize the way we traditionally think of human error. In short, both models force us to move away from “blaming someone” for human error; instead, it pushes us to look at human error as a consequence, not as a cause. In…
The legendary journey of the Ottawa Charter
Above are logos of the global health promotion conferences held in different cities in the world since 1986. Thirty years have passed since its inception in 1986. As its name implies, the first one was held in Ottawa, Canada. I first learned about the Ottawa Charter as a third-year medical…
How social norms shape our behavior – I
You must have been into a library; you stay silent. That is a classic social norm example. Another common one is littering. As we all know social norms can either be socially desirable or socially undesirable. Every day we adhere to social norms that are an array of unwritten sets…
Do your part – stay apart; more relevant now
This message becomes more relevant now than before with the growing presence of the COVID 19 variants. The new variants are more transmissible; for example, the UK variant is said to be 56 percent more transmissible than the original COVID 19 virus. What does that mean? It means if the…
Message framing effect on vaccine hesitancy-II
In 2018 I explored the message framing effect on measles vaccine hesitancy among the US population. In that post, I highlighted the Hendrix et al. (2014) finding that more parents were modestly persuaded to vaccinate their children when the benefits to the child were emphasized when compared to the standard…
Face mask comparison
Germany mandated the wearing of surgical masks, commonly called N95 while traveling public transport and public places two days ago. Previously clinical studies have shown cloth masks’ efficacy varies from 30 percent to 80 percent. Last December, a German community-based comparative study found normal masks’ efficacy as 45 percent. The…
Is Covid 19 different from the influenza flu?
Even after a year, some are grappling with the same old question: Is Covid 19 different from the seasonal flu? How do we communicate the risk convincingly to this target audience? Obviously, we need to compare number of deaths due to Covid 19 with the number of deaths due to…
