How Much Does Advertising Influence Your Views About Health and Illness? Part Two

How Much Does Advertising Influence Your Views about Health and Illness? Part Two

By Mr Ghaz, December 5, 2009

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How Much Does Advertising Influence Your Views about Health and Illness? Part Two

Who Controls Advertising?

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Advertising is controlled by manufacturing companies’ need to make a profit. They hope to keep their position in the market, or improve it, by the use of clever advertising. It would not be done if it did not bring material rewards.

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Manufacturer’ interests are not necessarily met by providing useful health information. It is difficult for either the government or the health authorities to have much control over advertising except bt ensuring that advertisements do not tell lies (the Trades Description Act controls this).

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Indeed the government can be seen to be in an awkward position. It gets revenue in taxes from the sales of the products which are advertised, no matter how bad for your health they may be.

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The government’s main effort to provide alternative information to the public is through the Health Education council. Compared with the budgets of advertising companies, however, what they can do on theirs is limited.

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In the opinion of many people the Health Education Council is no real answer to the power of advertising. It tends to emphasize individual responsibility for health rather than government and collective responsibility firmly on us to stop expecting drugs from doctors. No campaign to cut down on drug company high-pressure advertising or doctors’ over-prescribing was publicised.

Fact or Opinion?

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Your ‘events’ should give you a good idea of the role advertising plays in forming your views about health and illness. You will now be aware that many of the ‘facts’? Is it all due to the power of advertising? Or is some other factor at work?

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We are all selective about the information we retain and what we believe. One of the key factors affecting this is our own position in life. For example, if you smoke 50 cigarettes cause lung cancer. Someone who has never smoked and finds cigarettes unpleasant will find this fact easy to believe. (It is a fact, scientifically proved. What is still a matter of opinion is how cigarettes cause lung cancer.)

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Similarly, if you are well-off, you may find it hard to accept the fact that poor people have much more illness than people who are comfortably off. It may make you feel guilty. However, if you are poor, you know its true – ill – health is part of your life. The relationship between money and ill-health is a fact. What is still open to opinion is why poor people are less healthy.

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Some opinions are eventually shown to be facts, others aren’t. So you need to think carefully about your ‘facts’ and try to check whether they are really opinions. Try asking yourself these two questions.

1 Where did I get the information from?

2 What personal interest do I have in believing certain information?

But What Else Can I Do?

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If you think you would like to take further action on health information you could:

● Contact your local community health council – their address is in the telephone book. The council is a group of people from your area, some nominated by the local health authority organizations. Their job is to see that your views about the health service are passed on to the people working in it. Their other jobs include helping you contact the right people to deal with your problem, and helping you, if you need to make a complaint.

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● Contact your own local councilor to enlist his help and interest.

● Write to your MP and tell him of your concern. Ask him to do something about it. Remember the government gets revenue from advertising.

● Join or form a self-help group concerned with health information. Remember that a group of people which has a special point of view is always given more attention than individuals.

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● Write to your local Patient’s Association – They provide help and information on all aspects of patients’ rights to medical care.