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 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.
Liana B. Winett and Lawrence Wallack are with the School of Community Health, Portland State University, Portland, OR. Alyssa B. Wulf is with Real Reason, Oakland, CA.
Liana B
LB
Winett
Liana B. Winett and Lawrence Wallack are with the School of Community Health, Portland State University, Portland, OR. Alyssa B. Wulf is with Real Reason, Oakland, CA.
Alyssa B
AB
Wulf
Liana B. Winett and Lawrence Wallack are with the School of Community Health, Portland State University, Portland, OR. Alyssa B. Wulf is with Real Reason, Oakland, CA.
Lawrence
L
Wallack
D015984:Causality; D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003071:Cognition; D003142:Communication; D057890:Epigenomics / Q000458:organization & administration; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D011247:Pregnancy; D011297:Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects / Q000453:epidemiology; D011634:Public Health; D064890:Social Determinants of Health