Week 2: Course Intro & the Elephant and Rider

Key questions:

What is the role of intutition and reasoning in judgement?

What are the implications for KT, approaches to advocating for population health policies, and the design of public/population health communication?

What are key considerations in the world of population health policy making? 

Course material this week contributes to the following Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) recommended core competencies:

ASPPH Competency Bullet 3: Systems thinking regarding the dynamic interactions among sectors, organizations, and actors with which public health professionals interact to achieve health improvements, drawing (from ASPPH Competency Bullet 1) on the history and philosophy of public health as well as its core values, concepts, functions and leadership roles.

ASPPH Competency Bullet 9: Approaches to advocating for public health policies; familiarity with ethical and economic dimensions of health care and public health policy.

ASPPH Competency Bullet 6: Identification and pursuit of opportunities for promoting health and preventing disease across the life span and for enhancing public health preparedness.

ASPPH Competency Bullet 10. Public health-specific communication and social marketing, and the use of mass media and electronic technology.

Readings

Haidt, Jonathan. 2012. The Righteous Mind:  Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. New York: Pantheon Books, “Part 1: Intuitions Come First, Strategic Reasoning Second,” chapters 1-4.  *Pay particular attention to the pages starting at the end of chapter 2, beginning with the section "The Rider and the Elephant", which includes Figure 2.4 -- the social intuitionist model of judgment.  Then carry on with chapters 3 and 4.  No need to get bogged down in the discussion of philosophers in chapters 1 and 2.

Kershaw, Paul, Eric Swanson and Andrea Stucchi.  2016.  “A surgical intervention for the body politic: Generation Squeeze applies the Advocacy Coalition Framework to social determinants of health knowledge translation Links to an external site..”  Canadian Journal of Public Health.  108(2):e199–e204

SLIDES FROM CLASS Download SLIDES FROM CLASS

SLIDES TO SUPPORT WEEK 3 READINGS Download SLIDES TO SUPPORT WEEK 3 READINGS

Reference Material (not assigned reading)

Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. 2008. Closing the gap in a generation:  health equity through action on the social determinants of health. Final Report of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health, chapter 14, “Political Empowerment – Inclusion and Voice”. http://www.who.int/social_determinants/thecommission/finalreport/en/index.html Links to an external site.. Accessed August 22, 2018.

In class activities:

Introductions. 

• What attracts you to a course on KT? 
• To what issue(s) do you intend/anticipate applying ideas and skills gained from the course? 
• Who are the stakeholders/constituents/people for that issue? 
• What problem do they need to solve?  What will change if they solve it?

Discuss the Elephant & the Rider Metaphor, and supporting evidence

Introduction to course-long case study:  Generation Squeeze engaging the elephant.