James Gorman of the New York Times writes that disgust is having its moment in the light as researchers find that it does more than cause that sick feeling in the stomach. It protects human beings from disease and parasites, and affects almost every aspect of human relations, from romance to politics.

In several new books and a steady stream of research papers, scientists are exploring the evolution of disgust and its role in attitudes toward food, sexuality and other people.

Paul Rozin, a psychologist who is an emeritus professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a pioneer of modern disgust research, began researching it with a few collaborators in the 1980s, when disgust was far from the mainstream.

“It was always the other emotion,” he said. “Now it’s hot.”

Speaking last week from a conference on disgust in Germany, Valerie Curtis, a self-described “disgustologist” from the London School of Public Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, described her favorite emotion as “incredibly important.”

She continued: “It’s in our everyday life. It determines our hygiene behaviors. It determines how close we get to people. It determines who we’re going to kiss, who we’re going to mate with, who we’re going to sit next to. It determines the people that we shun, and that is something that we do a lot of.”

It begins early, she said: “Kids in the playground accuse other kids of having cooties. And it works, and people feel shame when disgust is turned on them.”

Dr. Curtis is involved in efforts in Africa, India and England to explore what she calls “the power of trying to gross people out.” One slogan that appeared to be effective in England in getting people to wash their hands before leaving a bathroom was “Don’t bring the toilet with you.”

Whatever the fine points of disgust, its power to affect behavior is unquestioned, and that power ought to be put to good use, Dr. Curtis said. So, in one of her projects, she has worked with an Indian public relations agency to come up with a disgust-based campaign to encourage hand washing among mothers in small villages, which could save countless children’s lives lost to diarrhea and other diseases.

The result, now being tested, is a skit involving two characters, one a supermom and the other a disgusting, dirty man. The man makes sweets using mud and worms, stops in the middle of the performance to rush off because he has diarrhea, never washes his hands and does everything possible to be revolting.

Supermom is scrupulously clean. Her children don’t get sick, the skit makes clear. In fact, her baby grows up to be a doctor. She washes her hands all the time.

The prominence of diarrhea in the skit is no accident. One thing about studying disgust, Dr. Curtis said, is that it makes you realize how important it is to talk about the very things that disgust us, because they often present dangers to public health.

“We need to talk about” excrement, she said, using a punchier single-syllable word for maximum effect — a word she is unapologetic about using, as befits a disgustologist.

“Which is worse?” Dr. Curtis asked. To talk about it, “or to make kids die.

Shock and shame.

We’ve been using disgust for a long time. It is called barfblog.

Dr. Dr. Chuck Dodd (DVM, PhD), program manager for veterinary services in the U.S. Army Public Health Command Region – Europe, shared his experiences from the midst of the E. coli O104 outbreak associated with raw sprouts centered in Germany earlier this year.

The video of Dr. Dr. Dodd, looking sharp in his military fatigues and fresh from another of his 100-mile ultra-marathons, is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/dodd-lecture as are the PowerPoint slides.

Late last night, Canadian health types issued a media release saying there were people sick from E. coli O157:H7 in several provinces linked to walnuts.

I noted that was really crappy risk communication – not being clear about what was known in terms of sick people and what was not known -- which is expected of government agencies like Health Canada, especially when they proclaimed a couple of days ago they were a founding member of some international Center of Excellence in Food Risk Communication (it’s a website and sucks).

About an hour ago (2:16 p.m. Eastern, April 4, 2011) the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) announced there have been 13 cases of E. coli O157:H7 in Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick (those are provinces in Canada). Nine individuals have been hospitalized and two cases developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS).

The strivers for excellence in food risk communication note:

“You can help reduce your risk of becoming ill by following safe food handling precautions:
◦ Clean counters and cutting boards and wash your hands regularly.
◦ Read labels and follow cooking and storage instructions for all foods.
◦ Make sure to check the "best before" date on all foods.
◦ Use warm soapy water to clean knives, cutting boards, utensils, your hands and any surfaces that have come in contact with food, especially meat and fish.
◦ Refrigerate or freeze perishable food within two hours of cooking.
◦ Freeze or consume leftovers within four days of cooking.
◦ Always reheat leftovers until steaming hot before eating.
◦ Keep refrigerators clean and at a temperature below 4° C, or 40° F. Install a thermometer in your refrigerator to be sure.”

I have no idea how this applies to raw walnuts, like the ones I had on my salad for lunch (those yummy walnuts were from California, not Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia or Iran, the places from where the fingered distributor, Amira Enterprises Inc. of St. Laurent, QC, imports things like walnuts.

And rather than toss out the suspect walnuts, Canadian health types recommend “consumers who have raw shelled walnuts in their home can reduce the risk of E. coli infection by roasting the walnuts prior to eating them. Consumers should place the nuts on a cooking sheet and bake at 350°F for 10 minutes, turning the nuts over once after five minutes.”

This does not account for the risk of cross-contamination with a virulent pathogen. My microbiology friends look forward to testing out this advice. I wonder what it was based on?
 

Graphic messages and reminders that use a shock-and-shame approach may get more people to wash their hands, according to a Kansas State University professor and his colleagues.

"Those 'Employees Must Wash Hands' signs in bathrooms may not be the most effective reminder," said Doug Powell, professor of food safety at K-State. "We wanted a comprehensive review of what others had done, and combined this with our own work on food safety messages that lead to behavior change. We weren't interested in self-reported surveys where everyone says they always wash their hands, but studies based on observed increases in handwashing compliance."

Powell worked with Casey Jacob, a former K-State research assistant in the department of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology, and Sarah Wilson, formerly of the University of Guelph. Their review of techniques to improve handwashing behavior was just published in the journal Critical Public Health.

The review was conducted as background for several ongoing experiments involving Powell and colleagues to increase handwashing rates in cafeterias, restaurants, hospitals, veterinary clinics and petting zoos. The team has previously designed handwashing campaigns at K-State involving both shock and shame.

"Social pressure, or shame, has been successfully used, especially within an entire organization," Powell said. "If you were in the bathroom at a restaurant and saw an employee not washing his or her hands, would you say, 'Dude, wash your hands?' The shock approach is designed to get people to 'be the bug' -- just for a moment -- and think about where their hands have been and where they are going to be, especially when around hospitals, food service or animals. Dangerous microorganisms move around a lot."

Behavior-change interventions to improve hand-hygiene practice: A review of alternatives to education
03.mar.11
Critical Public Health
Sarah Wilson; Casey J. Jacob; Douglas Powell
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a934338802~db=all~jumptype=rss
Despite the role of hand hygiene in preventing infectious disease, compliance remains low. Education and training are often cited as essential to developing and maintaining hand-hygiene compliance, but generally have not produced sustained improvements. Consequently, this literature review was conducted to identify alternative interventions for compelling change in hand-hygiene behavior. Of those, interventions employing social pressures have demonstrated varying influence on an individual’s behavior, while interventions that focus on organizational culture have demonstrated positive results. However, recent research indicates that handwashing is a ritualized behavior mainly performed for self-protection. Therefore, interventions that provoke emotive sensations (e.g., discomfort, disgust) or use social marketing may be the most effective.