Communicating health

Organ transplants: why so many people are put off donating irinabdw/Shutterstock (I'm republishing this article from The Conversation partly as an opportunity to acknowledge the progress that the UK has made towards reducing the number of cases in which families refuse to donate the organs of loved ones after they die. With the consent/authorisation rate going up 2% in 2018/19 to 67%, the country is much closer to the 80% target that would dramatically improve transplant outcomes, per the latest   Organ Donation and Transplantation Activity Report . But there is more work to be done) Gabriel Moreno Esparza , Northumbria University, Newcastle and Stephen Clark , Northumbria University, Newcastle It’s well known that there’s a worldwide shortage of organ donors. More than 100,000 organ transplants have taken place around the world every year since 2008 but this is way below what’s needed . In the UK , for example, fi...

This year, the so called  law of presumed consent in organ donation will enter into force in Scotland and England. If you are an adult and not within an excluded group, your main organs maybe retrieved after you die and, if deemed suitable, used for a person on the organ waiting list. This, unless you had previously expressed your decision to opt out of the Organ Donor Register. Moving to an opt out system is significant because it usually helps to increase the pool of organs available for donation, as illustrated by the Welsh case  and many other examples in the world.  I am starting this blog to reflect on the various forms of communication that will stem from the new legal framework. Since I started researching the subject in February last year, I have become familiar with the various ways in which communication media impinge upon public knowledge and attitudes about organ donation. I therefore intend to write commentary about coverage in the news media, content...