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Disagreement among experts about public health decision making: is it polarisation and does it matter?

It is common for aspects of the COVID-19 response—and other public health initiatives before it—to be described as polarised. Public health decisions emerge from an interplay of facts, norms and preferred courses of action. What counts as ‘evidence’ is diverse and contestable, and disagreements over...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Williams, Jane H, Hooker, Claire, Gilbert, Gwendolyn L, Hor, Suyin, Degeling, Chris
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10032394/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36948532
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2022-011182
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author Williams, Jane H
Hooker, Claire
Gilbert, Gwendolyn L
Hor, Suyin
Degeling, Chris
author_facet Williams, Jane H
Hooker, Claire
Gilbert, Gwendolyn L
Hor, Suyin
Degeling, Chris
author_sort Williams, Jane H
collection PubMed
description It is common for aspects of the COVID-19 response—and other public health initiatives before it—to be described as polarised. Public health decisions emerge from an interplay of facts, norms and preferred courses of action. What counts as ‘evidence’ is diverse and contestable, and disagreements over how it should be interpreted are often the product of differing choices between competing values. We propose a definition of polarisation for the context of public health expertise that acknowledges and accounts for epistemic and social values as part of evidence generation and its application to public health practice. The ‘polarised’ label should be used judiciously because the descriptor risks generating or exacerbating the problem by oversimplifying complex issues and positions and creating groups that seem dichotomous. ‘Independence’ as a one-size-fits-all answer to expert polarisation is insufficient; this solution is premised on a scientistic account of the role of evidence in decision making and does not make room for the value difference that is at the heart of both polarisation and evidence-based decision making.
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spelling pubmed-100323942023-03-23 Disagreement among experts about public health decision making: is it polarisation and does it matter? Williams, Jane H Hooker, Claire Gilbert, Gwendolyn L Hor, Suyin Degeling, Chris BMJ Glob Health Analysis It is common for aspects of the COVID-19 response—and other public health initiatives before it—to be described as polarised. Public health decisions emerge from an interplay of facts, norms and preferred courses of action. What counts as ‘evidence’ is diverse and contestable, and disagreements over how it should be interpreted are often the product of differing choices between competing values. We propose a definition of polarisation for the context of public health expertise that acknowledges and accounts for epistemic and social values as part of evidence generation and its application to public health practice. The ‘polarised’ label should be used judiciously because the descriptor risks generating or exacerbating the problem by oversimplifying complex issues and positions and creating groups that seem dichotomous. ‘Independence’ as a one-size-fits-all answer to expert polarisation is insufficient; this solution is premised on a scientistic account of the role of evidence in decision making and does not make room for the value difference that is at the heart of both polarisation and evidence-based decision making. BMJ Publishing Group 2023-03-21 /pmc/articles/PMC10032394/ /pubmed/36948532 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2022-011182 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Analysis
Williams, Jane H
Hooker, Claire
Gilbert, Gwendolyn L
Hor, Suyin
Degeling, Chris
Disagreement among experts about public health decision making: is it polarisation and does it matter?
title Disagreement among experts about public health decision making: is it polarisation and does it matter?
title_full Disagreement among experts about public health decision making: is it polarisation and does it matter?
title_fullStr Disagreement among experts about public health decision making: is it polarisation and does it matter?
title_full_unstemmed Disagreement among experts about public health decision making: is it polarisation and does it matter?
title_short Disagreement among experts about public health decision making: is it polarisation and does it matter?
title_sort disagreement among experts about public health decision making: is it polarisation and does it matter?
topic Analysis
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10032394/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36948532
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2022-011182
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