My goal as a Science Communicator is to think about the way we can bring light to scientific or health issues through effective communication. But that begs the question, what is "effective" communication?
In the fall of 2017, I had the joy of studying under Dr. Jessica Howell in her course, Introduction to Health Humanities. In this course, we talked about what it means to study medicine and health as humanities majors. The course introduced us, as humanities majors, to a cross-disciplinary study of health. Topics included history, literature, philosophy and bioethics.
My final research paper in the course focused on the use of fictional T.V. characters with ADHD and the impact those characters have had on the social stigma and acceptance of the illness. Media portrayals and inaccurate assumptions have caused skepticism of the illness. I researched stock, comedic characters from popular sitcoms, such as How I Met Your Mother, which include scenes with discussions of ADHD. These characters have caused a negative stigma, a belief that they are simply undisciplined or easily distracted, to be placed on children and adults who have the disorder. The conversation needs to be changed about ADHD in children, so we can eliminate the negative stigma and skepticism of such diagnoses. This research was incredibly enlightening to me as I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adolescent. I often struggled with the stigma of being labeled as such - later on, I will share a bit of my experience.
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is defined by the National Institute of Mental Health as “a brain disorder marked by an ongoing pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that interferes with functioning or development.” There have been countless studies on the symptoms and treatment of ADHD, but what a reader would read in an article would not necessarily reveal an in-depth explanation of the entire disorder, which is expressed differently from patient to patient. Misguided and ill-informed interpretations of ADHD in the media has had a significant impact on the social stigma and acceptance of the illness.
Let's think about it this way, we have children and adults being diagnosed with ADHD and other similar disorders, but many folks out there don't fully understand these disorders. They are presented with examples such as this from How I Met Your Mother - Season 5, Episode 3 "Robin 101":
This is just one example of ineffective health communication. While this show is not meant to be a health or science show, it is still an inaccurate and incomplete generalization of ADHD. If a viewer who does not have the background knowledge of ADHD sees this scene, the viewer could form an inaccurate opinion of children with ADHD. The example of Barney in a classroom increases the stigma that children with ADHD are simply easily distracted and are not easily tamed. This satiric treatment of ADHD are problematic, as they cause an increased distrust of the diagnosis, leading to the over-diagnosis and over-medication of people who may not even have the disorder.
Such medical misinformation is highly dangerous when it comes to an uneducated viewer - I'm not calling people stupid, this issue just comes down to ignorance and misunderstanding. The viewer is presented with a medical “scenario” and can ultimately draw an inaccurate conclusion about the diagnosis and treatment of the disorder. Inaccurate and irreverent representations of ADHD in the media manipulate the mind of the audience to believe the experience that is being presented is accurate of all patients.
It is important to realize that depictions of ADHD in the media are often misguided and further aggravate misconceptions about the disorder. For a lot of students with ADHD, they will sit in a classroom day after day and appear to be taking in whatever subject matter is being taught. However, on the inside, their minds are racing from thought to thought. This inability to focus is frustrating and can cause the student to be discouraged because while their classmates are mastering whatever topic, they are struggling to keep up - that was my experience. I found myself depressed and doubting that I would ever be on the same level as my peers.
To effectively communicate about illnesses and disorders such as ADHD - or even things like depression, anxiety, and Bipolar Disorder - we need to understand what is truly going on and express those things with empathy and respect. Simply using a disorder that can be easily twisted into a simple behavior problem is not the way to do it. The article I mentioned above from the NIMH talks about how the symptoms of ADHD can be misunderstood: "Symptoms of ADHD can be mistaken for emotional or disciplinary problems or missed entirely in quiet, well-behaved children, leading to a delay in diagnosis. Adults with undiagnosed ADHD may have a history of poor academic performance, problems at work, or difficult or failed relationships."
So I ask you to think about how you or someone around you may be perpetuating the stigma and encourage them to see things differently.
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