Injury prevention and risk communication: a mental models approach

Abstract

Individuals' decisions and behaviour can play a critical role in determining both the probability and severity of injury. Behavioural decision research studies peoples' decision-making processes in terms comparable to scientific models of optimal choices, providing a basis for focusing interventions on the most critical opportunities to reduce risks. That research often seeks to identify the ‘mental models’ that underlie individuals' interpretations of their circumstances and the outcomes of possible actions. In the context of injury prevention, a mental models approach would ask why people fail to see risks, do not make use of available protective interventions or misjudge the effectiveness of protective measures. If these misunderstandings can be reduced through context-appropriate risk communications, then their improved mental models may help people to engage more effectively in behaviours that they judge to be in their own best interest. If that proves impossible, then people may need specific instructions, not trusting to intuition or even paternalistic protection against situations that they cannot sufficiently control. The method entails working with domain specialists to elicit and create an expert model of the risk situation, interviewing lay people to elicit their comparable mental models, and developing and evaluating communication interventions designed to close the gaps between lay people and experts. This paper reviews the theory and method behind this research stream and uses examples to discuss how the approach can be used to develop scientifically validated context-sensitive injury risk communications.

Mental models of sea-level change: A mixed methods analysis on the Severn Estuary, UK

“…The terms 'misunderstandings' (Cox et al, 2003), 'misinterpretations' (Cox et al, 2005) 'misconceptions' (Morgan et al, 2002), 'misperceptions' (Austin and Fischhoff, 2011;Lata and Nunn, 2011) and 'incorrect beliefs' Morgan et al, 2002;Reynolds et al, 2010) are common in mental models literature, and imply that the expert model is definitively correct or true, while the public model is not. This is of course not necessarily the case (see for example Kuhn, 1962;Edge, 1995).…”

Using Community Detection Analysis to Elucidate Caregivers’ Mental Models of Pediatric Concussion Symptoms

“…Researchers have proposed using the "mental models" method of risk communication in the domain of injury prevention [13]. A mental model is a simplified cognitive representation of a dynamic system [14].…”

“…A mental model is a simplified cognitive representation of a dynamic system [14]. For example, Austin and Fischhoff [13] state that in the context of injury prevention, a mental models approach would ask why people fail to see risks, do not make use of protective interventions, or misjudge the effectiveness of protective measures. Once formed, mental models impact the way in which information is processed so that information deemed consistent with existing beliefs is more easily acquired and integrated, strengthening those beliefs regardless of their accuracy.…”

Patients’ mental models and adherence to outpatient physical therapy home exercise programs

“…Patients begin physical therapy with a ''base'' mental model of what treatment adherence entails. Because mental models are largely tacit, patients must articulate their models in order for physical therapists to assess inaccuracies and variations from expert models (Austin and Fischhoff, 2012;Carley and Palmquist, 1992). Physical therapists can help patients to articulate their mental models with questions that reveal patients' beliefs, values, and expectations about physical therapy treatment and adherence.…”