Credit Tony Cenicola/The New York Times - New York Times
Then, divide the class in two halves and take a hand count for this question: Is it healthy to eat food off the floor? Yes or No?
Next, give each half a different Times article excerpt about the “five-second rule.”
• Excerpt 1 from “‘Five-Second Rule’ for Food on Floor Is Untrue, Study Finds” (PDF)
• Excerpt 2 from “I’m a Doctor. If I Drop Food on the Kitchen Floor, I Still Eat It.” (PDF)
Ask students to read the article excerpts quietly, and then write a brief reaction to what they read.
Before discussing the articles, ask each half of the class the same question again: Is it healthy to eat food off the floor? Compare the new tallies with the old ones. Did reading the articles sway opinions for either half of the class?
As a class, discuss the articles and how they influenced students’ beliefs about the “five-second rule.” Follow up by discussing how students get their health news in general, and how they decide whether to believe what they read or hear.
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Activities
All the activities below can be done individually or in conjunction. The sequence below is only a suggestion.
Part I: What Are Reasonable Precautions to Take to Protect Our Health? A Case Study
Credit
Whitten Sabbatini for The New York Times
One health threat that has made headlines over the last year is the Zika virus, especially how the virus can affect babies born from infected mothers. But Catherine Saint Louis reports in The Times on another threat to infants that hasn’t made many headlines: CMV.
You might start by asking students, before reading the article, to share what they have heard about the Zika versus what they have heard about CMV, or cytomegalovirus.
Then, have students read all or part of the article “CMV Is a Greater Threat to Infants Than Zika, but Far Less Often Discussed” and answer the following comprehension questions:
1. What is CMV? What are its effects?
2. What suggestions does the author provide for how to prevent the transmission of CMV or to minimize its effects?
Then, in small groups or with a partner, students should discuss the following questions:
3. What makes one health threat more newsworthy than another? Why is Zika more well known than CMV? Should it be that way?
4. Should doctors discuss with expecting mothers health precautions they might be able to take to avoid getting CMV? What about Zika? When might medical information become overwhelming or unhelpful to patients? Who should decide what information patients receive?
5. Does this article provide useful and accurate health information for the general public? Why do you think so?
Part II: Understanding How Science Research and Reporting Work
Credit
Stuart Bradford
One of the challenges of health reporting is communicating the complexity of the scientific process to readers. Phase 1 trials are very different from Phase IV ones. The results of prospective trials can have different implications than those of double-blinded trials.
Students can read this explanation of how clinical trials work by the Department of Surgery at Columbia University Medical Center. They can view this image from PHD Comics about the “Science News Cycle.” (Here’s our lesson plan for analyzing cartoons.) And, they can read one journalist’s struggle with reporting on health issues when new, and often contradictory, scientific findings are coming out all the time. Then, they should answer and discuss the following questions:
• What is the purpose of a clinical trial?
• What different steps do scientists take to try to eliminate bias and yield the most accurate results?
• What role does the media play in educating the public about trial results?
• How could it do a better job? What responsibility does it have to provide more information — and what information should it provide?
Part III: Questioning Sources: Determining the Scientific Accuracy of Health-Related News
Students will be exposed throughout their lives to many sources of health-related news that come from less-than-reputable sources, and they should learn how to evaluate reliability before accepting what they read or hear.
As an assessment to see how savvy they are in questioning what they read, you may give students this source, which suggests the “true cause” of the Brazilian microcephaly outbreak. Allow them to read and discuss the article in groups, and see if they begin to question the source.
After reading, students can view the World Health Organization’s page dispelling rumors around Zika and complications as well as this CBS News article about the claim.
After reading, ask students:
• What are the competing claims regarding the cause of microcephaly?
• Which claim is better supported by scientific evidence? How do you know?
Ask students to return to the first article, “Larvicide Manufactured by Sumitomo, Not Zika Virus, True Cause of Brazilian Microcephaly Outbreak?” Ask them to reread it with an eye to identifying possible clues that the source may not be reliable and to determine ideas for how to check the accuracy of information presented in the source. They can share their discussion with the class. (For a specific teaching point, you can direct them to the original Times article cited in this article, and ask them to compare how the Times article was used versus what the Times article actually says.)
Part IV: Community Research Project — Helping People Be Better Informed About Health Issues
Credit
Cristina Spanò
Sensational headlines, competing claims and misinformation can end up confusing the general public about how to make healthy decisions. For this research project, ask students to identify a health-related issue that affects their community, and about which there is a lack of understanding or clarity.
Below are examples of topics covered in The Times along with a selection of related articles, but students should also feel free to explore health-related issues not listed below:
• How dangerous are headphones to our hearing? “Children’s Headphones May Carry Risk of Hearing Loss” and “Americans’ Hearing Loss Decreases Even With Ubiquitous Headphones”
• Are e-cigarettes dangerous? “Safer to Puff, E-Cigarettes Can’t Shake Their Reputation as a Menace,” “Use of E-Cigarettes by Young People Is Major Concern, Surgeon General Declares” and “Keeping E-Cigarettes Away From the Kids”
• Should we fear sharks? “A Shark Attacks, and the Wave Turns Red” and “Should Swimmers Worry About Sharks?”
• Should we avoid butter? “Should We Be Scared of Butter?” and “Butter Is Back”
• How important is it, really, that we floss? “Flossing and the Art of Scientific Investigation” and “Feeling Guilty About Not Flossing? Maybe There’s No Need”
• Is sugar the enemy? “How the Sugar Industry Shifted the Blame to Fat” and “Coca-Cola Funds Scientists Who Shift Blame for Obesity Away From Bad Diets”
• Should we be scared of Ebola? “In Europe. Fear of Ebola Exceeds the Actual Risks” and “Emotion Is Not the Best Medicine, Ebola Case Further Shows”
Here is an outline to guide students’ research:
1. Conduct online research on your issue. Possible research questions include:
• What is the issue? What is at stake?
• Who are the stakeholders?
• What kind of information or evidence are people exposed to regarding this issue?
• What is the current scientific consensus? Or, if there isn’t a consensus, why not?
• What questions still remain?
2. Develop research questions to ask in your community to determine the beliefs that people have about the issue and what has influenced their beliefs. Then, conduct a survey.
3. Prepare a presentation in which you:
• Describe relevant research
• Display your survey data about community awareness
• Discuss the implications from your research: What does the public need to know that it doesn’t? What’s the best way to inform it?
4. Deliver your presentation to your class or members of your community.
• Ask students to critique each other’s presentations as community members. What helped to inform them? What questions do they still have?
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Concluding Questions
Health reporting and news can represent a minefield of competing claims for students unprepared to evaluate the value, reliability and relevance of information. After students complete one or more of the above activities, they can consider the questions below:
• What makes a study or a source reliable or unreliable? Should the results from one study persuade us to change behaviors? Why?
• What should a person do when encountering contradictory health claims?
• What responsibility do each of the following groups have in making sure that we have the best and most up-to-date health information: researchers, doctors, the media and ourselves?
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