How long have we been communicating science?
Communicating science is an activity as old as science itself. In ancient Egypt, with the development of hieroglyphic writing and papyrus, mathematical, medical, and architectural knowledge was registered and passed to future generations. Later, public debates in ancient Greece democratised the access to knowledge and fostered the development of experimentation, science, and philosophy. In museums around the world, we can find historical documents that represent the need to record and transfer acquired knowledge, over time.
With the development of the press in the 15th century, the spread of knowledge was simplified, but was still limited to a privileged part of the overall population. According to the Royal Society of London, the first scientific journal was published in 1665 with the name Philosophical Transactions. This publication transformed science communication, launching concepts such as peer-review and scientific archive, which are common to most of the 30,000 journals published nowadays. Despite these advances, it was only in the 19th century, with the increase of literacy rates, that scientific advances began to be intentionally passed to the general population, paving the way for the current concepts of scientific and health literacy and health communication.
To whom and how is science communicated?
Currently, the communication of scientific results to the scientific community is based on:
- scientific articles
- scientific and technical books
- presentations at scientific events
Educational science communication to the general population (including patients) is mainly focused on:
- information documents and awareness campaigns
- journalistic pieces (news, reports, and documentaries)
- digital platforms and websites.
In particular, biomedical research is on the basis of clinical and scientific knowledge and is a key element in the process of launching innovative, effective, and safe medicines and medical devices on the market. In recent decades, the communication of the results of clinical studies has become a topic of debate within the scientific and publishing community. As a consequence, several recommendations and guidelines have been proposed for the conception of scientific documents.
In this context and considering both regulatory requirements and the increasing health literacy of the general population, health communication has also improved in terms of formats and contents.
From the pandemic to the infodemic
Nevertheless, the past two years of pandemic crisis—which demanded important political health decisions—created several challenges and highlighted previously existing questions regarding scientific communication to the general population. In this period, we have assisted to an exponential rise of misinformation and fake news, while a constant flow of complex technical information was provided prematurely to the community, with no possibility of integration by most people. The WHO came to consider that, in parallel with the pandemic of COVID-19, we have assisted also to an infodemic, which has been defined as the dissemination of an unusual volume of information (including false information), in digital or physical form, concerning a health or disease issue. This phenomenon, which was greatly amplified by the expansion of social media and internet use, has created a wave of mistrust in institutions, researchers, and even in scientific research itself. The medical and scientific communities experienced an unprecedented situation in which patients and healthy population assumed opinions and positions that did not always comply with the recommendations of health authorities.
Information vs. trust
In this context, it is urgent to act in a concerted manner to:
- restore public confidence in scientific research
- identify strategies to harmonise the guidelines for the communication of scientific results to the general population
- implement general population health education programmes, based on scientific evidence, which can provide basic health knowledge and the ability to sort information.
The medical writer: scientific truth at your fingertips
Redefining the biomedical research communication model is a multidisciplinary process that requires the involvement of professionals and technicians from the following areas:
- medical (doctors, nurses, and health institution managers)
- pharmaceutical (pharmacists and pharmacy technicians)
- communication (medical writers, journalists, and other media professionals).
In particular, the technical writing skills and scientific training of medical writers make these professionals key elements in this process. In collaboration with journalists, researchers, health institutions and political decision-makers, medical writers can guarantee the adaptation, screening, simplification, clarification, and accurate presentation of the contents to be presented to the general population, creating conditions for informed and health-conscious decisions.
In general, the change of paradigm regarding the use of specialised professionals for writing scientific documents is an ongoing reality, which will result, in the short term, in an increase in the quality of scientific publications and health literacy, ensuring that the scientific truth reaches different audiences in an accessible format that can be interpreted and integrated by everyone.
If you find this topic relevant and wish to broaden its discussion, please leave your comments below or contact me.
Take care!
Paula Pinto
