A conference aimed at helping health professionals,
medical journalists and the general public
gain a better understanding of health benefits and risks
will be held later this month on the
Homewood campus. Speakers and research papers will address
topics such as the risks associated with
overtreatment and ways to make better-informed medical
decisions.
The meeting was co-organized by Edward Bouwer, the
Abel Wolman Professor of Environmental
Engineering and chair of the Whiting School's
Department of
Geography and Environmental Engineering at Johns
Hopkins.
The event will focus largely on issues raised by
Bouwer and his outside colleague, Erik Rifkin, in
their 2007 book, The Illusion of Certainty: Health
Benefits and Risks. Their premise is that because
much information about health risks is confusing and
contradictory, people need new perspectives and
tools to help them make intelligent health decisions.
"This is a very timely symposium," Bouwer said. "We
have a new president [in this country], and
one of his highest priorities is to reform the nation's
health care system and reduce its costs. Many of
the presentations at this conference will focus on whether
certain expensive tests and treatments are
truly worthwhile."
Bouwer and Rifkin are not physicians. In writing their
book they drew on their decades of
experience as environmental health risk researchers and
directed their expertise at the data in
mainstream medical studies. They looked, for example, at
the strength of the link between high
cholesterol and heart disease, the usefulness of cancer
screening and the safety of the water we
drink and the air we breathe.
Among their book's favorable reviews was one in the
prestigious New England Journal of
Medicine. They also received praise for a key tool
introduced in the book: a hypothetical 1,000-seat
"Risk Characterization Theater." With seats representing
people, this chart is designed to make it
easier to view the absolute risks related to a particular
disease, or the benefits of receiving certain
medical screening or treatment.
"The book's reception has been a pleasant surprise,"
Rifkin said. "We've heard from several
physicians who have used our Risk Characterization Theater
to help their patients make decisions
about hormone replacement treatment and kidney
transplants."
To continue the discussion of issues raised in their
book, the authors organized the upcoming
conference, which they call the first International
Symposium on Understanding Health Benefits and
Risks. It will be held on May 28 and 29 in the Charles
Commons Conference Center.
According to a published overview, the two-day event
"will provide a forum for professionals
from different disciplines to discuss a timely and
increasingly important issue — the communication of
health benefits and risks to patients and citizens."
The target audience includes health professionals,
policy-makers, social scientists and
journalists. For nurses and social workers, attendance has
been approved for continuing education
credit. People who write about health research should also
benefit, the organizers said.
"Members of the media who report on medical studies do
not always present the results
correctly and effectively," Rifkin said. "Presentations at
this symposium should help improve their
understanding of how to successfully communicate health
risks and benefits to the public. Empowering
the public to make well-informed decisions about their
health is a primary goal of this symposium."
One of the speakers will be health care/medical
journalist Shannon Brownlee, whose talk is
titled "Overtreated: Why Too Much Care Is as Bad as Too
Little." Another participant is physician
Avrum Bluming, a clinical professor of medicine at the
University of Southern California, whose topic
is "Judgment Day: What Do We Know About HRT (Hormone
Replacement Therapy)? What Should We
Know?"
Sponsors of the event include the Center for
Contaminant Transport, Fate and Remediation, and
the Institute for Policy Studies, both at Johns Hopkins.
More information about the symposium, including the
schedule and registration details, is
available at the event's Web site:
jhepp.library.jhu.edu/ocs/index.php/healthrisks/
first.