Team:HZAU-China/Public Engagement
All fear comes from the unknown. We live in a world where advanced science and high technology keep making progress. It is also a world where we all live under asymmetric information from time to time. The asymmetric information, which in our case mostly means professional knowledge, is causing inappropriate panic towards emerging fields like AI and GMO among the public, and some even believe the world would end if we keep developing such technologies. Fear and doubt can be good things which lead us to think profoundly, but also harmful if we refuse to think objectively. We thought that everyone could make better decisions with more information or knowledge, however, we also learned that the ability to comprehend new information decreases with age. So, combining our 2018 project, we decided to offer a little help to those who needs cancer-related information in a more lucid way to express, and we wanted to answer their questions in person for the best effects. We believe if anyone could be the communicating bridge between the public and advanced science, is we college students, since we have the right resource, the right cause and enthusiasm.
To acquire a detailed understanding about the public attitude towards our project，a questionnaire was designed based on two documents (see also Safety for more information). The questionnaire was spread through Internet, and a total of 1036 pieces were received.
1. 26.2 % people we inquired are afraid of cancer, while more people worry about cancer occasionally. Some do not care about cancer and think it will not appear around. Overall, a large proportion (73.8%) do not panic about cancer.
2. Nowadays, government propaganda and media reports have reduced people's fear of cancer. Regardless of the diverse resources of data，only about 40% people felt quite fearful about cancer.
3. 70% people are fearful of cancer because of the high mortality rate and the pain of losing their loved ones. But in contrast, the high cost of treatments is not the largest fear for them.
4. Most people learn about cancer mainly by WeChat Moments and subscriptions, some by communicating with friends and families.
5. According to the means people learn about cancer, those who collect information by communicating with friends or families are easier to feel scared of cancer while those who get professional information from scientific papers hardly feel so.
6. In terms of age, middle-aged participants feel more panic about cancer while the youth fear less.
7. People who are not engaged in biological or medical fields are easier to get panic about cancer.
8. The majority of those who learn about cancer mainly by chatting with others, generally show ignorance or disappointment about China’s current anticarcinogen developing speed.
9. 55% respondents showed ignorance or disappointment about China’s anticarcinogen developing speed. What’s more, all of those who expressed firm opposition to the Salmonella targeting method belong to that 55%.
10. Many participants actually hold the expectation to the Salmonella curing idea. The strongest hope was to avoid healthy tissue damages, the second was the clearance of Salmonella to avoid infection.
11. From the result, 92.1% people felt a professional platform in which they can obtain specialized knowledge could help them reduce their worries about new technologies. This is also from where we learned that the idea of a science blog may actually has its market.
(questionnaire design, statistical results and statistical methods can be downloaded here)
At the beginning of this new school year, we gave a presentation to the newly enrolled students of College of Life Science and Technology, and Department of Bioinformatics. The aim was to increase their interests in life science, provide them with basic knowledge of synthetic biology, and introduce our projects to them. The presentation was broadcasted live through Internet video ; comments and attentions are both acquired.
In analyzing the information obtained from the questionnaires and presentation feedbacks, we believed that establishing a science blog about cancer by college students can be both insightful and practical. Our blog includes three sections: a brief introduction of cancer, cancer treatments, and basic aspects of synthetic biology. We kept answering the questions in the comment area, and we truly hope that one day, this idea will spread, when college students could be organized systematically in order to help people with the answers that couldn’t be acquired by simply searching keywords.
