This ‘Diabetes Research’ blog is initially about the seed-project ‘Information Avoidance and diabetes‘. This project is an initial investigation of how and why people with diabetes might not seek or engage with information about their diabetes. More projects should follow, and find homes on this blog.
Bruce has published a long post about the presentations he attended at #AECIST20. It’s here: https://bruceryan.info/2020/06/20/memories-of-aecist20-2.
if you want to go straight to individual presentations, follow these links:
This post looks backward because the event was on 8 to 10 July. The words are adapted from Hazel Hall’s post. I will blog about the full event very soon.
Click the graphic to see the full-size PDF in a new tab or window.
During a presentation by Professor Gunilla Widen on her information behaviour research, she mentioned the concept of ‘information avoidance’. My major medical condition, Type 1 diabetes, calls for a lot of data– and information-gathering by patients. Diabetes patients may need to gather data several times a day, and decide on large parts of their own treatment. But we all know that people aren’t always rational ‘information-consumers’. (Gunilla made this point very strongly.)
I began to wonder whether some people with diabetes avoid information about their conditions. If this happens, then it would be important to understand how prevalent such behaviour is. On a practical note, it would be useful to find whether and how people can be nudged into engaging with information to achieve better healthcare outcomes. I saw these questions as a possible opportunity to add to both healthcare and to information science theory.