Transcript
Patagonia Health 0:44
As a quick background about our speaker, we're so excited. Her name is Deborah Thompson. She is a public health advocate with experience and persuasive communication from her role as a legislative liaison for the Iowa Department of Public Health; she founded DHT consulting and training to support health and human services professionals. Deborah is involved with the Iowa Public Health Association, the Iowa Immunizes Coalition, and volunteers locally. Without further ado, I'm going to pass this over to Deborah.
Deborah Thompson 1:19
Thanks, Dayna. I'm really happy to be here. Really appreciate the invitation and the opportunity to share my experiences and things that I've picked up along the way in this beautiful building. This is the Iowa State House. Very beautiful. I encourage anyone to take a tour of it if you find yourself in Des Moines, Iowa. So I always laugh that I was raised in this building. My first position was as a Senate intern in 2004, as I was finishing up at Drake University. Since then, I've worn several hats up there. I've enjoyed a lot of different employment opportunities. And as Dana mentioned, I was the legislative liaison for the Iowa State Health Department for about seven and a half years. So what that position is is the point of contact between state legislators and the professionals back at the department. So I would go in between and talk about legislation, public health, and trade ideas.
So I considered myself the department salesperson. And when I started, the makeup of the legislature was very different. And over the years my tenure there, the legislature became more and more conservative, and I realized that I also needed to evolve and change my approach to public health messaging, our data centric talking points were met with polite silence as new legislators came the Tea Party Republicans who came into 2010 and kind of evolved from there, prioritized information that they use to make decisions in a different way compared to the Democrats who had held majorities earlier. So luckily and kind of coincidentally, people in North Carolina, public health professionals and their and their partners in North Carolina had found a framework they had used to effectively compel sheriffs in the state to support syringe services programs, needle exchange programs, they're commonly called, and if anyone has ever had the experience of advocating for These programs, you'll know that law enforcement plays a big role in your success. And so, given the success of these professionals, I decided to look more into it. And long story short, I started using it, and it was one of those things that actually worked once you adopted it.
So the framework prioritizes morals and values in persuasive communication, again over the use of data, facts, graphs, and the like. Don't want anyone to get it twisted. Factual information still fuels the reasoning behind the need for advocacy and education on a topic, but it takes a back seat in the messaging piece when you're messaging the information to an audience, especially if the goal is to gain buy-in. So to illustrate this, I'll be using vaccine hesitancy. This is a, what I consider, a forever issue for public health professionals. Vaccine hesitancy has walked alongside us since the very first smallpox vaccination was given back in the late 1600s. I believe it will stay with us for the foreseeable future. It's just part of human nature to be skeptical and on the right. Conditions that skepticism can evolve into a complete rejection of this critical public health intervention, and this typically happens at the introduction of a new vaccine. This framework, though, can be applied to any topic. It goes beyond vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine hesitancy just kind of lends itself really well to it. By the end of my presentation, I hope you'll understand what values-based communication means and looks like. You'll have the tools to check your elephant, which will make more sense in just a second, but to remain present and engage in a conversation that might be frustrating or or difficult, and to gain acceptance that it's a long game to change a person's mind, and especially when a moral foundation has been triggered. So hopefully after that, you'll have enough interest to pursue more information about this framework. It is very much a skill set.
I have no expectation that anyone will become an expert. It took me probably at least two sessions, so 12 to 18 months, to fully adopt the mindset. It's a skill. It's something to practice some level setting, values, and morals are two concepts that are often used interchangeably. You can also throw in words like ethics, principles, virtues, and beliefs to make it really confusing. So, for the sake of this talk, I define them in the following ways. Values are beliefs, principles, or goals that you, as an individual, work toward, and they can define the core of your own personal identity or that of a group you may belong to. Values serve as guideposts when you're making life choices. Some of you, if you're fans of Brene Brown, she is a wonderful person, and I think her target audience is probably women of a certain age, but everyone can glean some good points from her. She provides a list of values in her Dare to Lead initiative trainings, and this list of values is really a good reference document as you think about messaging, think about messaging with values. This gives you some vocabulary to use. Morals. On the other hand, there is a set of rules that differentiate right and wrong, good or bad, based on the belief system of a society or its culture. We use morals, whether we realize it or not, to determine what we think is acceptable behavior in a given context. I like to think of morals as rich and well established soil through which our values grow from using my own moral foundations, I kind of think of it. I think of my role as my son's life Sherpa. So I explained to him what society, in my lived experience, has determined as good or bad, and in his own personal values that he develops along the way, he's going to determine how well he lives within those constructs and what he might embrace in his values and what he might reject. We're all different, even if the base is similar.
I mentioned I was going to be talking about vaccine hesitancy as a way to illustrate this framework. So again, just more level setting, revisiting what vaccine hesitancy is the World Health Organization defines it as a delay in acceptance or an outright refusal of vaccines despite the availability of vaccination services, and it's influenced by factors like complacency, confidence and convenience you even have vaccines in your town to get today, I'm going to focus on strengthening the confidence that people have in receiving vaccinations. False information, we know, plays a big role in vaccine confidence. There are three categories: misinformation, we all make mistakes, and sometimes we can unintentionally spread information that's incorrect. Didn't mean to do it, it just happens. Then there's disinformation. It's a bit more sinister. It's fabricated or intentionally manipulated information. Uh, including purposely creating conspiracy theories and developing rumors. Disinformation is deliberately and maliciously created to harm a person, a social group, an organization, or a country, and misinformation is a deliberate publication of somebody's personal and private information for personal or private interest. The information is often published with a call to action to harass the person whose information belongs to and cause harm. The information isn't false. It's just used in a way that is harmful. You may have heard of the word doxing.
Deborah Thompson 10:50
The majority of false information falls into the disinformation category, and it includes things like misrepresenting or purposefully misinterpreting scientific publications and making false claims that are backed by pseudoscience and non-credible sources or individuals, and sometimes, unfortunately, those are former physicians who have had their licenses suspended or revoked by state governing boards. People who create disinformation are intentional in their actions. They work really, really hard to make it believable, and they can do wonders with computers and design programs like Canva, so the majority of people who share the information don't know that the information is untrue. And this is how disinformation spreads, and it spreads primarily on social media. The information looks credible. People find it and share it, and then more people find it and share it again, and soon it's repeated often enough that people believe it to be true, even if the facts don't add up.
Dr. Arthur Caplan is a professor of bioethics at NYU Medical Center, and he's a notable advocate for vaccine confidence. He offers this perspective: There are vaccine opponents who hate vaccines. You're not going to change their minds. They're in the minority of vaccine critics, they've heard all the facts, and they do not care. Then there are vaccine-hesitant folks. They're fearful, but they're not completely closed off. Now we know as public health professionals that it's really important that most of the population that's eligible to receive vaccinate vaccines, get them in order for the vaccines to have their intended impact, which is to slow and eventually prevent the spread of infectious diseases like COVID but also influenza, the mumps, rubella, polio, and of course, right Now, we're tragically witnessing a large, deadly, multi state outbreak of measles as the results of vaccine hesitancy, as I'm speaking right now. So whenever we're talking to someone who's vaccine-hesitant, we really want to do our best to build their confidence in vaccines.
And in many instances, if not most, it will be a long game process involving several conversations. A place to start that long game is understanding how morals can be used to better understand the hesitancy in a person and to be able to speak to them about it. The research I'm using for this presentation comes from the work of Dr Jonathan Haidt. He's a social psychologist who spent decades researching moral psychology. He developed three principles to improve communications with people who have opposing views. More recently, you may have heard his name; he's been doing a lot of research on the effects of screen time on children and adolescent mental health as well. But before he got into that, he wrote a book called The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. After reading it, after I read it, there were three principles to this strategy that I had to internalize in order for it to work for me. When I started to talk to legislators at the State House One, there was this elephant and a writer analogy about the way that we internalize information. There are six moral foundations that trigger a response in all of us, and the fact that morality binds us all together, but it also will blind us. The elephant and the rider analogy is the recognition that people.
React to things, first based on their gut, their intuition, and then they'll provide the necessary reasons to rationalize that reaction, whatever it is, if it's positive or negative, and that becomes our truth, and then we will defend that truth even to the point of being completely irrational. Intuition comes first, reasoning comes second. An easy way to remember this is by using the analogy of the elephant and a rider. The sheer mass of the elephant represents the power of our knee-jerk reactions, our triggers, our gut, and our intuition. It will outweigh the writer, both in size and strength, and it will easily outpower that tiny, little writer that represents rational thoughts, logic, and sensibility. Intuition comes first, reasoning second; what we consider our truth may not be rational. The second principle is that these gut reactions or triggers come directly from at least six moral foundations, according to his research, six different categories of behavioral norms that may offend you or make you happy. These are bedrock foundations that are part of our evolution as humans. It's detailed in the book.
It's really interesting. My point is that they will and have withstood all of the political dynamics the human race has come up with; these foundations are buried very deeply within us. They're very primal. They're located in the same spot as what tells us to be hungry and thirsty, the really old parts of our brain. What is also true, according to hate research, is that some of us are naturally conservative and some of us are liberally minded. I'm purposeful in leaving party labels out of this, like Republican, Democrat, libertarian socialist, all of that, because of the way that those labels have historically shifted based on the morals of the people who are in charge of them. So conservative and liberal are more authentic to the human condition than these labels of Republican, Democrat, and whatnot. The six moral foundations are care, fairness, loyalty, sanctity, authority, and liberty.
Deborah Thompson 17:53
Moral foundations are a two-sided coin as well. They trigger positive and negative reactions, so I'll read these to you, and then we'll go into each one in more detail. So care versus harm, fairness versus cheating, loyalty versus betrayal, sanctity versus degradation, authority versus Subversion, and liberty versus oppression. Just looking, let's see
Deborah Thompson 18:39
The Care Foundation and all of us want to care for others, and especially the vulnerable people in our society. So, the elderly people who live with disabilities, even animals, we want to protect them from harm, and we want to punish those who cause harm. So liberally minded people may find themselves empathizing with folks they've never met and will likely never meet. Conservatively minded people will care more strongly for folks that they do know personally and interact with. So, making an issue feel close to them is really important as you approach persuasive communication for vaccinations. This foundation is what drives questions like, Is this going to harm my children? Are other loved ones in my family going to be negatively impacted? Will it harm me? And these are fair and well-intentioned questions, so the disinformation that's out there points to the answer being, yeah, you and the people that you care about are likely going to be harmed, and that causes vaccine hesitancy.
There is this notion, then, that it's easier to do nothing because of the fear of the action of receiving the vaccine or permitting your child to receive it. Receiving the vaccine will cause harm, and that's when the person starts to go into, you know, a protective mode of downplaying the risks of their inaction. So they say things like, COVID is just a cold, measles is just a rash. This is the rationalization of their inaction. For people who are vaccine confident, the answer to those questions about harm is highly unlikely, and they are concerned that more harm is possible by not receiving vaccines compared to receiving them, both to them as individuals and to the people in their community. Vaccine-confident people may also be triggered by the disinformation and the misinformation that they see or hear, because that also causes harm. So, for example, you will see regular outreach outrage. Excuse me, anytime that RFK Jr speaks about the country's measles outbreak, because he is spreading a lot of disinformation. We feel the third, or, excuse me, the second Foundation, fairness, cheating. We feel that relationships should be reciprocal, so there should be benefits for each side of the relationship, covering a co-worker shift so that they'll do the same for us, for example, is an example of reciprocity. We believe that everyone should contribute their fair share. Our society does not like social loafers. We do not like cheaters.
And what's fascinating about the fairness cheating moral foundation is that there are actually differences in how we define it. So for some of us, we see fairness as proportionate, that people should be rewarded in proportion to what they contribute, even if that guarantees unequal outcomes, you get what you deserve. Hard work pays off. Play the hand that you're dealt in life as best you can. These tend to be conservatively minded people who feel this way. Their elephant is triggered when they feel cheated, or they feel that others who do not contribute as much as they do are getting rewards they don't deserve. Others see fairness as equity. Everyone should have the same access and opportunities they need to make their way in life. Everyone should have a level playing field, and because of the many factors like historical exclusion and oppression of bipoc communities and immigrant populations, that may mean providing some people with more resources than others to accomplish this. So what's important to point out to a conservatively minded person, though, is that we're not picking the winners and losers in the game. You still have to have purpose, work ethic and motivation, you have to be you have to be able to put in the effort. And I do think that this gets lost sometimes when talking about the distribution of resources in terms of fairness. Now, as it relates to vaccines, this foundation is very clear and present in policies governing vaccine requirements, and not just for COVID, the controversies around COVID vaccine mandates, but mandates for childhood and adolescent vaccinations as well. Is it fair to create different policies for those who choose not to vaccinate, compared to those who say yes to vaccinations?
Is it fair to allow unvaccinated people into spaces where there is a concentration of people who are vulnerable to infectious diseases, like we see in hospitals or nursing homes? You can also think about how healthcare professionals on the front lines of an outbreak feel when someone comes in who's not vaccinated. That is where we tend to find compassion fatigue, because people are burnt out and they're overwhelmed by illness, and some amount of that can be relieved by uptake and vaccination. So that's fairness, cheating reciprocity,
Deborah Thompson 24:33
The third moral foundation is loyalty and betrayal. Humans began forming groups very early on in our evolution because isolation is dangerous. We're still talking about that today. Groups create rituals and traditions. Members use colors, symbols, and logos to provide or to show. Pride in their groups. We're more trusting of the people that are in our identity groups, and we don't like it when we feel that someone has betrayed the group; they get shunned or they get kicked out altogether, ostracized. So this may be present in vaccine, hesitant patients who might be worried about getting a vaccine because it's counter to the belief system of the group or groups that they identify with the most, that could be their family, their political identity, their church, even their sports teams, if they're outed as having been vaccinated, this may cause some of their relationships to become tense, and people shy away from conflict. It's definitely natural, especially if the costs are emotional, while it is irrational to put themselves in harm's way by increasing the likelihood of getting really sick from these infectious diseases. Their elephant is telling them that it's far more dangerous to be ostracized from their identity groups.
Deborah Thompson 26:23
The sanctity foundation and all of us explain why we endow ideas like democracy and religion, objects like crosses and flags, places like monuments or cemeteries, and people like historical figures or celebrities with infinite value; they become untouchable in positive and negative ways. We revere them, and we honor them, and we are disgusted and shocked if they are degraded in any way, this is one where I would challenge you to be creative as you think through the things that you feel are sacred to you, and that would upset you if you saw it disrespected in any ways. I've used it in political settings, I've used the sanctity of good governance, the sanctity and relief that Justice brings. The sanctity of the old teaching the young, or excuse me, the sanctity of the image of the you know, older person teaching a younger person to fish in ponds that are now too polluted to use.
This stocking point was inspired by a Norman Rockwell painting I saw, or a picture if you are familiar with Norman Rockwell. He's probably someone that our grandparents and parents are probably more familiar with, but he wrote that he would illustrate very idealistic and ideal family scenarios and situations. Google it. Norman Rockwell for vaccine-hesitant people. This foundation may create concerns among some religious folks about vaccines and fetal cells, and we know that this is a very nuanced issue. Some people are also concerned about putting non naturally occurring chemicals in their bodies. So you might have to talk through that. It's just the saying, my body is a temple. There's sanctity around the notion of my body, my choice. We've now seen all political sides use that, um, for our vaccine confidence advocates. The sanctity of keeping the body free of disease is very important. The sanctity of protecting your community and the vulnerable people in it. Public health professionals often cite that they're doing God's work, at least that's true for rural Iowa, where I live. They may also reveal the effectiveness of vaccines being passed down generation over generation, so much so that they've been able to contribute to increased life expectancy. It's kind of like an American tradition to offer this protection to our children. The disinformation around vaccines is also found to be disrespectful, because many people hold the scientific method as sacred. I
Deborah Thompson 29:51
In society, for the authority and subversion of moral foundation, we allow authority figures to maintain control over COVID. Sign of order in the population. Authority figures, at their best, are trustworthy, worthy, credible, and respected. We use them to settle debates and disagreements among the population, and we're kind of conditioned to comply with their requests, their orders, and their rulings. We create standards that must be met before authority is recognized. Authority is not to be confused with blind loyalty. It's not suggested that you blindly follow people. There should be some reasons why you do. We don't like it when an authority figure is undermined. So, for example, that picture of the student talking back to a teacher, most of us would see a problem with that and likely intervene on her behalf. Some of us may find more value in authority figures like police, military people at the top of an organizational chart. You know, that kind of hierarchical authority?
Others may also find authority figures who are subject matter experts like us, as public health professionals, academics, doctors, nurses, and scientists. So think if you are someone who has achieved licensure or some other credential, think about the things that you had to do to become licensed and what you have to continue to do to maintain it if you violate a code of ethics or a law practice standards, then we designated maybe a board of your peers, or some other way to assign consequences when you have abused your authority. When it comes to vaccine hesitancy, we know that people are doing their own research on the internet, but unless you're a researcher, by education and experience, it's more likely you'll fall prey to confirmation bias than uncover the facts. So, in other words, people will work really hard to confirm again what their elephant believes. But it's also critical to remember that if you want to be a trusted authority figure in society, you have to be trustworthy. Trust has to be earned. It has to be fostered with consistency in order for it to be kept.
Deborah Thompson 32:37
Now we allow authority, but not tyranny. Humans are very wary of abuse of power. We are very skeptical when leaders propose restraints on liberty. We want choice. We want flexibility, and we place a very high value on freedom and feeling free. Tyrants and bullies are not tolerated in society. Conservatively minded people are more apt to think of liberty as the right to be left alone, especially by government. Liberally minded people see it a little differently, that instead of being left alone by government, government is the only force strong enough to oppose the abuses of private industries. They believe the government should be compassionate and supportive. So, in order for an authority figure to be able to enforce regulations, there has to be agreement that the regulation is fair, given that compliance by most people is necessary. A clear example of this was seen in people's reactions to lockdowns and whether or not they felt there was an abuse of government authority.
Here in Iowa, we had a few situations where counties had passed mandates for masks, and county sheriffs refused to enforce them. I think that there's something to the debate around the abuse of authority, but that's a presentation for another day. The question is, really, how do we assure the public, when we make these proposals, that there are safe checks and guards in place to prevent abuse of authority and in a way that is authentic and worthy of the public's trust? Public Health takes risks when a new regulation is proposed, and it's critical to make the case that it's worth giving up some amount of personal freedoms because the benefit to the community is more important. And also, to complete that circle, to make the case that what's good for the community is good for the individual. So. So moral foundations are two-sided coins. Just to put them all back on the screen, we've got care versus harm, fairness versus cheating, loyalty and betrayal, sanctity and degradation, authority and Subversion, and liberty and oppression. Now you saw me maybe sneak through some reflection slides. What I want to do is just make a point there, instead of actually having the time for reflection, because I can see a lot of chat activity.
So I'm wondering if there's a lot of questions, but it's very important that you think about the things that would trigger you under these moral foundations before you go into a conversation that you know is going to be difficult being able to identify you know, alright, I care about my child. I want to protect my child. If there may be something that triggers you, you just have to be aware that that might be the time that you step away from the conversation, thinking it through. I gave two ways that people think about fairness. Is it proportionality? Is it equity? How do you think about fairness? Knowing that about yourself will better prepare you for a conversation with someone who may feel differently about fairness. What groups do you identify with? What do you find to be something you hold with infinite value? For the sanctity foundation, I gave a couple of options for authority figures. Do you find yourself more apt to, you know, automatically obey a police officer, a judge's order? Military presence or is it an and you know, how do you feel about the authority that subject matter, expertise brings, education, and also lived experience? And then finally, do you feel free?
And what are the situations when you don't feel free? How do you view liberty in terms of the role government plays in your life, and what groups do you find oppressed, and what role should government play to alleviate that third principle? So again, it was the elephant and the rider, these six moral foundations. And now this third principle of moral psychology recognizes that morality binds us together, but it can also blind us. And this is where the self-righteous indignation comes in. That's anger that is primarily motivated by a perception that there has been a moral lapse. And remember, I said this was very deep and primal inside us. So this moral lapse, if it's egregious enough, we might defend how we feel about it to the point of being completely irrational and even violent. So we will defend our group, our ideas, our people, our authority figures, whatever, to the point of laying down our lives to protect them. The whole reason we have a military is just like bees will defend their own hives to the death, humans will do that too, and we really don't have to try too hard to find examples of this. And it's really intense when you say it out loud, we will lay down our lives in order to preserve the morality that has been violated based on our perception of what that is. So morality binds us, it brings us together, and it blinds us with self-righteous indignation. The six moral foundations guide our intuitions, and these intuitions will make us react, and again, sometimes in a positive way, sometimes in a negative way, and we can really, really take it to the extreme, and we're all guilty of it. And so again, what can we do to avoid this? We can recognize our triggers and recognize whether or not we're acting in an irrational way. This is self-reflection that needs to take place.
Deborah Thompson 39:47
Okay, now we have to think about how to apply this,
Deborah Thompson 39:52
thinking about the conversations that you might have with someone who feels differently, whether. About vaccines, whether that's about politics, whatever, you'll be most effective with the people who are in your sphere of influence. I use this with legislators, but I also have very strong relationships with legislators. So, practicing this within your spheres of influence is a good way to start building that courage. But just like an Olympic athlete will visualize a routine, think about where you see that conversation taking place. If it's going to be a difficult one. Are you on a coffee date? Is this at a family gathering? Maybe you're safer just texting each other instead of having a face-to-face conversation. That might be a good way to engage folks in the younger generations. So, how might you start that conversation? That's what we're going to go into now. Whoops, I press buttons. Okay, all right, so the first responsibility you have is not to make it worse. And again, I've been guilty of this. So this part might be a do as I say, not as I do, but if we remember that the person talking to us, and especially if they're in our sphere of influence, it probably means we have an existing relationship. Trust that people are just trying to do what's best, that they're coming from a, you know, a good place, so don't make them feel small, demanding, or patronized. Watch what you share on social media. Watch how you casually talk to other people. So again, if you're at Thanksgiving and you're speaking with someone who's more aligned with your point, but you're trying to also throw a little shade over to the person who is opposed, maybe your voice gets a little louder, just make sure you know that they can hear you, even if they're pretending not to. Bottom line, has insulting someone ever changed their mind?
Deborah Thompson 42:06
That's the point.
Deborah Thompson 42:08
And it's hard. Sometimes. I'm not going to say this is easy. This is all very, very difficult. Then that's why it takes practice getting your mindset ready if you're going to if you're going to go to go to the family function, if you're going to Easter this weekend and you are intent on, you know, this is the only opportunity I might see this cousin in person that I want to speak with. Or, you know that politics just may come up in some space, or you're speaking with someone in a clinical setting or at a vaccine clinic. Just get your mindset ready, you know, go through those six moral foundations. Remember what your own triggers are. Remember that you also have an elephant that you may need to check and kind of, you know, get control of that primitive part of your brain which tends to want to argue, to refute points that wants to win and that wants to be right, and move it over to that, you know, kind of classy writer, brain that rational thought, as tiny as it is, and be deliberative about your Communication. You know, actively listen, seek understanding, try and explore what's going on behind the other person's thoughts, and be curious, open and compassionate.
Deborah Thompson 43:36
Honestly, this slide is just don't try to win the argument right there. It's a long game. You try to win the argument, you may not be successful, and that might be even more frustrating, and you may not get another shot as a result. So having the goals to you know, I want this person to see me as a trusted source of information, so that they come to me for answers instead of the internet, if they say, hmm, I haven't thought about it like that, that's a win. I actually got very excited when I was in front of legislators, and I made them think, or make that little head nod, turn thing where you know, they're considering a thought, that's a win. And then, thank you. No one has listened to me like this before, is just meaningful and kind, and then, well, let me think about it. Is a win. The elephant, on the other hand, is the one that's going to try and get you to win the argument, and might result in making things worse. These are examples of constructive questions. So when I was saying, Be curious, listen these questions help you get there. What makes you say that?
Deborah Thompson 44:50
Why is this issue so important to you?
Deborah Thompson 44:54
Is there a person or experience that has influenced your belief you know, maybe they're. I'm spending a little too much time with del big tree in the anti vaccine space. Can you say more about that when you said this? Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Why do you think it is and have you always felt that way? And now listen to my tone here. It isn't what makes you say that, or why is this so important to you that sounds differently and thus will be taken differently? Listen and reflect back. I just don't think it's a big deal. This is someone who may be vaccine hesitant. Joe Rogan said, healthy people my age aren't at risk, and I don't want to miss work because of a bad reaction to the vaccine. So instead of saying Joe Rogan is stupid and you should not be listening to him, you can reflect what you heard to build trust. Don't even mention Joe Rogan. It sounds like since you feel healthy and you're concerned about missing work, that you're wondering why the vaccine is worthwhile to you, bringing it back to the individual or keeping it at the individual level, instead of trying to go to community, empathizing, the writer carefully listens for opportunities to agree on something. So as they're speaking, say, Yeah, you're right. Older people are more likely to die, to die from infectious diseases. That's true. You're right. This vaccine, talking about the COVID vaccine, has been developed faster than any vaccine in history, or the classic that I like to use. I'm a parent too, and I definitely don't want to just put whatever into my son. I love him as well. And so I also had questions about vaccine safety that I asked. And of course, with all of this, it's authenticity. Don't agree to something that's not true. You know, if you really didn't have any vaccine safety questions, or,
Deborah Thompson 47:03
you know, the like,
Deborah Thompson 47:11
humbly building credibility. This speaks to the authority moral foundation. So if you are a licensed healthcare professional, how do you stay up to date, according to the requirements in the law? Again, careful not to shame or demean sources so well. You might look at Joe Rogan, but I'm over here at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. That will not be taken in the way you want it to be taken. But it is just, you know, hey, a big part of my job. You know, for me, I'm not a licensed professional. So I say, you know, I'm really involved in the Iowa immunizes coalition. And as a mom, these are the steps that I take, and I really trust the professionals that are on these coalition that's on this coalition, and then people will receive information better if they have given you permission to provide it.
Deborah Thompson 48:04
This isn't something I always to be honest,
Deborah Thompson 48:09
obey to a T I have had instances where, without responding, that they received the information I forwarded. You know, proactively, they did read it. Maybe they just didn't want me to know they read it, but it did impact the way they voted or the way they thought about something. So I guess in conversation, ask permission for that, but I don't want to say that it's not worth it to push information out to someone without their you know, sure I'll read it or or whatever. And then again, ultimately, it's their decision how they feel about things, if they want to get a vaccine. Um, but just say, you know, live to fight another day. Ultimately, it's your decision. I just want you to be safe. Please let me know if there's anything else that I can help you with. Okay, so I'm summing it up here. About 10 minutes left for questions. Um, I just said a lot, uh, hopefully I repeated it enough for some of it to stick. The key takeaways, though, is that we all have gut reactions to be aware of, and they can make us very self righteous. Our gut reactions come first, and then the rationalization comes second to make it our truth. Sometimes we need to not sometimes, most of the time, when you have that gut reaction, it's a good opportunity to say, is this a rational reaction, or am I just reacting? There are six moral foundations that create these reactions in us, that trigger us. Morality binds us. It brings us together, and it blinds us. It can. Make us irrational and violent. Seeking understanding calmly with curious questions is a good way to enter into conversations reflecting on your morals and values and the morals and values that you hear coming from them, the person that may think different, really, from you, or the strategies and the skills to develop. You can go back to the slide deck that Dana will have and video of this, or you can just Google Brene Brown values to get more of that language that values language, especially if you're you know an epidemiologist hanging out with data all day, and then play to the long game. It's okay to say, You know what? We don't have to talk about this. Let's just go get some cake, or we'll talk about this later. You know, if there's tense, it's okay to have some tension, but if it's starting to feel like you're fixing to get into a fight, back away. Slowly,
Deborah Thompson 51:02
go get some cake, and then,
Deborah Thompson 51:04
above all, just know that people can be persuaded. It is. It has happened in my presence, it don't give up on people. Just come back to them. Give them some space. And space might look like weeks, months, years, hopefully not years. But give the space and come back. People can be persuaded. Don't give up hope on that. All right, any questions for me or or comments, or, you know, tell me where you agree or disagree, or what was new information? Got a few minutes left yet for
Patagonia Health 51:39
that? It looks like we do have one question from Macy, thank you. This is what they said when it comes to messaging and trying to create value based messaging for religious group. Oh, from religious groups, have you found any success with certain values that really resonated with communities?
Deborah Thompson 52:00
Okay, values I would use with religious groups. Honestly, I think any of these would apply.
Deborah Thompson 52:17
I'm trying to think of the HPV space. I think I would just go that tends to be controversial, and it gets wrapped up into morality and and tends to find itself kind of floating in the religious areas. But you know, all religious folks want to care for those who are vulnerable. They just may have different definitions of who is the vulnerable population, and that's where you have to see. You have a have to have those curious conversations about who in the argument. So again, in the HPV argument, the vulnerable population that they are concerned about are adolescents having, you know sex too soon or well not, or that you know that somehow it will lead them to feel they can engage in and sexual activity that religion would say needs To wait until marriage or or what have you. So I would say that any of these again, if you take the time to understand the moral
Deborah Thompson 53:33
that is being lifted up,
Deborah Thompson 53:40
you can apply the moral foundation or the argument. Yeah, I don't know if that was really helpful. If there's, like, a specific, like, religious, you know, topic, I can help you with that if you want to email me later, but it's hard to go writ large on, on all religion, yeah,
Patagonia Health 54:07
all right. Madeline had a question. They said, hey, when seeing a patient, you may not here we go. Wait a second. You may not have time for in depth conversations. What would be the most important takeaways to focus on slash ways to reduce triggers.
Deborah Thompson 54:26
Yeah, that's a great point. I think the authority figure piece. If you tell a person you know, you're up for a vaccine, you know, do you want the shingles vaccine? And they say, No, no, no, no. You might say something like, Can I can I give you some information to take home with you? I've had my doctors do that. When they're not able to go into depth on something that's going on, they send me home with information. And just say, you know, this is the stuff that I use. It's part of my. Okay, it's part of the way that I continue my education. These are, these are validate the fact that they have good questions and that it's okay to to ask them and then say, I would love to give you some information. And then when you come back, we can have another conversation about your willingness to get these vaccines.
Patagonia Health 55:23
Great. Paige left a comment that's pretty insightful. She said, I like to share the approach I use. Sometimes I use my own personal health condition. I'm a kidney transplant recipient, therefore I am immunocompromised. I will mention that sometimes and explain the others. Being vaccinated helps me to stay healthy. Being up to date on vaccines creates a healthy community environment. I really try not to use the term herd immunity. Most folks don't like that.
Deborah Thompson 55:51
I love that for two reasons. First, I don't like herd immunity because the Iowa immunizes coalition had a putting a herd in immunity, and it it made me feel like a cow, and I just like, didn't want anything related to a cow on a shirt. But to your other piece, I honestly, I tell public health professionals in Iowa all the time, do not remove Remove your human nature. Just because you walk through the doors of your department, you're still a mom, you're still someone with a disability, with lived experience, don't shut that off just because you've come into work. We can have duality in so many different ways, and who you are presenting yourself to is only made more authentic the more sides you show to another person. So if they think that you are just a person in a white coat talking to them, there's no reason for them to believe that you have any emotional connection to anyone else, or that you've had your own lived experiences. You really have to relate to people and allow that to happen. So, yeah, I'm a mom. I have a condition. Humanize yourself. We have got to be better about humanizing ourselves so that, because that is part of the the trust as well, people want to know that you get them. You know, it's the power of the community health workers too, that we've rediscovered during COVID.
Deborah Thompson 57:24
I think that's a great place to end it on. Thank you so much, Deborah, for those insights and for your expertise about this. I know this is a really hot topic. A lot of people were really interested in this, so I really, really appreciate your expertise on it.
Deborah Thompson 57:39
Thanks so much. I appreciate the invitation, and everybody have a good rest of your week. Happy Easter if you celebrate awesome.
Patagonia Health 57:49
And one last note from us, we were so happy to be able to host you. And if you would like to learn more about Patagonia Health, we're an integrated EHR practice management and and billing solution provider that creates great workflows for local health departments, including tools to share, education, mass messaging, immunizations and mass vaccinations. If you would like to learn more about Patagonia Health, please visit our website at WWW dot Patagonia health.com, have a great day. Everyone. You
