Framing Strategies to Avoid Mother-Blame in Communicating the Origins of Chronic Disease

Evolving research in epigenetics and the developmental origins of health and disease offers tremendous promise in explaining how the social environment, place, and resources available to us have enduring effects on our health. Troubling from a communications perspective, however, is the tendency in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of public health (1971) 2016-08, Vol.106 (8), p.1369-1373
Main Authors: Winett, Liana B, Wulf, Alyssa B, Wallack, Lawrence
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
AJPH s
Causality
Chronic Disease - epidemiology
Chronic illnesses
Cognition
Communication
Community Health
Epigenetics
Epigenomics - organization & administration
Female
Gender
Gene expression
Humans
Media
Mothers
Mothers - psychology
Pregnancy
Prenatal development
Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects - epidemiology
Public Health
Roles
Science
Social Determinants of Health
Verbal communication
Women's Health
Womens health
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Summary:Evolving research in epigenetics and the developmental origins of health and disease offers tremendous promise in explaining how the social environment, place, and resources available to us have enduring effects on our health. Troubling from a communications perspective, however, is the tendency in framing the science to hold mothers almost uniquely culpable for their offspring's later disease risk. The purpose of this article is to add to the conversation about avoiding this unintended outcome by (1) discussing the importance of cognitive processing and issue frames, (2) describing framing challenges associated with communicating about developmental origins of health and disease and offering principles to address them, and (3) providing examples of conceptual metaphors that may be helpful in telling this complex and contextual story for public health.
ISSN:0090-0036
1541-0048
DOI:10.2105/AJPH.2016.303239