Corinne Hodgson

Author's details

Name: Corinne Hodgson
Date registered: April 21, 2008

Latest posts

  1. Who are Low Germans and why do they matter to public health? — November 22, 2011
  2. A relook at the Milgram obedience experiment: are we all capable of being Nazis? — November 7, 2011
  3. Is healthcare biased against men? The case of PSA testing — October 31, 2011
  4. As Kenny Rogers said, you’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ‘em — October 24, 2011
  5. It’s not what you think – when health stats are twisted — October 19, 2011

Most commented posts

  1. Who is responsible for misleading statistics? — 6 comments
  2. Relative risk is like a push-up bra — 2 comments
  3. If bribery doesn’t help people change, what about penalties? — 2 comments
  4. What is the meaning of “100-year storm”? — 2 comments
  5. Eat a salad and you eat alone – teens’ attitudes about healthy eating — 1 comment

Author's posts listings

Nov
22

Who are Low Germans and why do they matter to public health?

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The best part of my job is that I’m always learning something new. Recently, I was employed by a health department inOntarioto do some lit reviews and one of the topics concerned “Low Germans”, more formally referred to as those who are Low-German-speaking. Of course I knew a bit about Mennonites and the Amish (the … Continue reading »

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Nov
07

A relook at the Milgram obedience experiment: are we all capable of being Nazis?

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If you ever took first year psychology – or read any popular psychology – then you’re probably familiar with the obedience studies conducted by Stanley Milgram at Yale in the early 1960s. Inspired in part by the horrors of the Holocaust, Milgram wanted to assess whether some nationalities are more willing than others to obey … Continue reading »

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Oct
31

Is healthcare biased against men? The case of PSA testing

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My husband has a cadre of male friends that I refer to as his “pub buddies.” They’re great guys and range from retired professionals to tradesmen. Little moss grows on any of them. Lately, hubby came home with the message that he and his pub buddies had decided that the policy about PSA testing in … Continue reading »

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Oct
24

As Kenny Rogers said, you’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ‘em

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I’ve been writing a fair bit about motivation and different strategies that have been proposed for helping people stay on track. But there’s another side to the issue that is often overlooked: knowing when to give up. As Kenny Rogers sang, you’ve got to know when to hold ‘em and keep trying but you also … Continue reading »

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Oct
19

It’s not what you think – when health stats are twisted

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Years ago, I worked for a health charity that sent out fundraising letters with a message on the envelope proclaiming “One out of every two people who open this envelope with die from [insert disease]!”  The folklore was that it even became a joke on late-night US television, as in “who would want to open … Continue reading »

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Oct
11

Women and heart disease – time to stop blaming menopause?

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For a long time, it’s been argued, women’s risk of heart disease is relatively low until menopause, at which point it begins to increase dramatically. However, new analysis is challenging this paradigm. In an article published in BMJ (British Medical Journal),1 researchers at John Hopkins and the University of Alabama looked at ischemic heart disease … Continue reading »

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Oct
03

The lay epidemiology of heart disease or why bad things happen to good people

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Recently, I was reading some interesting articles on “lay epidemiology” – how the general public understands the incidence of disease. 1, 2  In this case, the disease was heart disease, specifically cardiac deaths.  As the authors point out, the health community has spent a lot of time, money and effort educating people that cardiovascular mortality … Continue reading »

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Sep
26

Motivation – time to accept the new paradigm?

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A number of books are now out there showing that the idea that positive reinforcement (e.g., a bonus or commission) is actually a bad idea.  But unfortunately, as predicted in Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, it’s been hard to get rid of the old paradigm.  Schools, businesses and families around the world continue … Continue reading »

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Sep
18

Can we “end” the two primary causes of mortality – heart disease and cancer?

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Recently, there’s been a spate of campaigns promising to “end” cancer, or at least certain types of cancer.  I’m not naming any names here. I mean, I understand why organizations are making these sorts of claims – they want and need some sort of dramatic claim to galvanize donors and volunteers. The more flamboyant the … Continue reading »

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Sep
11

Is it time to move beyond ‘fight club’ analogies?

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In light of Jack Layton’s death from cancer, there was an op-ed article in the Globe and Mail about the problems and limitations of the common practice of using fight analogies when talking about disease.1  The author, Carly Weeks, makes the point that equating illness with a war, battle or fight with an enemy diminishes … Continue reading »

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