Dear All,
Reading 'Health and Health Care Inequities - A Critical Political Economy Perspective', I've just posted with a quotation about information, with the addition of interest and ideology.
More 'evidence' supporting the need for a theory of health communication and generic global model of care?
'I often go back to Carol Weiss. Years ago, she said three things that go into the decision making ... information, ideology, and interest. And then she went on to say, don't for one moment think that information can trump either ideology or interest. So if you look at the whole climate debate right now, it's actually an ideological debate, The right-wing, the Republicans, some Conservatives here, their rejection of the evidence has nothing to do with the evidence. It's really an ideology ... our group thinks this way, and we are aligned with the fossil fuel industry because they're rich and powerful. Our whole system is based on cheap energy. And so we have to keep going kind of thing. And bugger the evidence.
And that second one, which is actually very closely related to that, is interest. By interest, she meant power and wealth and stakeholders. So, who gets the policy they want? The people who have the money and power to influence it. So, the fossil fuel industry is very powerful ... And so, no matter what the evidence is, they have a financial interest in not having any controls upon them having the minimum of controls. And so, that will triumph usually. So, you put together ideology and interest, and it will almost always overcome evidence or information.' p.78.
Arnel M. Borras. (2025) Health and Health Care Inequities - A Critical Political Economy Perspective. Fernwood Publishing.
https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/health-and-health-care-inequities
https://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2025/07/heakth-inequities-borras.html
Weiss, C.H. (1983). Ideology, Interests, and Information. In: Callahan, D., Jennings, B. (eds) Ethics, The Social Sciences, and Policy Analysis. The Hastings Center Series in Ethics. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-7015-4_9
Peter Jones
Community Mental Health Nurse, Part-time Tutor and Researcher
Blogging at "Welcome to the QUAD"
http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/
HIFA profile: Peter Jones is a Community Mental Health Nurse with the NHS in NW England and a a part-time tutor at Bolton University. Peter champions a conceptual framework - Hodges' model - that can be used to facilitate personal and group reflection and holistic / integrated care. A bibliography is provided at the blog 'Welcome to the QUAD' (http://hodges-model.blogspot.com). h2cmuk AT yahoo.co.uk