The Canadian Public Health Agency publishes the first report on people' psychological manipulation🩺🇨🇦
A study on compliance strategies and the establishment of a behavioural science office by the Public Health Agency of Canada under Chief Medical Officer Theresa Tam have raised ethical questions over the transparency of the agency's use of taxpayer funds to shape public opinion.
Under the direction of Theresa Tam (@CPHO_Canada), Canada's Chief Medical Officer, the public health agency @GovCanHealth established a behavioural science office (BeSciO) and recently published its first report on its public compliance persuasion.
Tam has come under intense scrutiny in recent years for this conflict of interest because she also sits on many committees for the World Health Organization.
The report begins with an acknowledgement to the land and describes The development of BeSciO by the Public Health Agency of Canada between April 2021 and March 2023. BeSciO, which was established in the spring of 2021, highlights the significance of human behaviour in public health and provided crucial counsel and data to assist the government's pandemic response.
According to the paper, behavioural science, or BeSci, is a multidisciplinary area that integrates the social sciences, psychology, and neuroscience to study human behaviour and decision-making. It highlights how crucial it is to comprehend the psychological, social, and institutional elements that affect decision-making so that professionals can develop practical solutions that affect behavior-based results.
The paper states that BeSciO has "joined forces with the World Health Organization, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Office of the Chief Public Health Officer, and the Behavioural Insights Team, to name only a few." Therefore, as WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) noted during a strategic roundtable on behavioural science for better health in 2022, it's critical that the public be ready for the "crazy ideas" that are coming down the pike.
Tam affirms working in tandem with the @WHO, leveraging their technology for behavioural insights to track adherence to public health protocols.
As well as PHAC's Data, Surveillance and Foresight Branch (previously Corporate Data and Surveillance Branch), the new unit expresses its gratitude to the amazing BeSciO crew.
Heather Devine (@cbcgeek) and Dhurata Ikonomi (@Ikonomi) have signed the report, but it's unclear who else from the behavioural science team signed it. Notably, neither Devine nor Ikonomi are included on partner Impact Canada's behavioural insight team, indicating the government uses behavioural scientists for jobs that are less obvious and go beyond public health.
Following a "needs assessment" in April 2021, BeSciO was established by Health Minister @PattyHajdu, who is credited with having "recognized the critical role of human behaviour in public health."
It states that BeSciO was established "to support PHAC's revitalization as a world-leading, data-driven public health organization by introducing an innovation and experimentation function within the Branch."
One of their earliest assignments seems to have been the memo from May 2021 titled "Testing Behaviourally-Informed Messaging In Response To Severe Adverse Events Following Immunization," which stated that the government's safe and successful marketing slogan needed to be upheld in all messaging and communication regarding COVID-19 vaccine injuries.
BeSciO set out in its first year to address "priority areas such as vaccine confidence, public health measures, combatting mis/disinformation, borders measures, and public health communications to inform key pandemic response activities" in response to the growing mistrust in public health following its grotesque mishandling and response to pandemics. BeSciO's focus was broadened in its second year to include additional areas that were determined to be crucial to PHAC's mission, such as mental health, antibiotic resistance, and the relationship between infectious disease and climate change.
Through addressing human decision-making tendencies, the new office showcases the expanding use of behavioural science to improve health outcomes globally. It seeks to forecast how policies will be received, pinpoint obstacles to health-promoting behaviour, create coordinated programs, and assess interventions to improve results. Within two years,It finished eleven research projects, addressed more than fifty requests for help, hired ten fellows, had ten training sessions, added 308 new members to its community of practice, and released sixty-three newsletters on subjects like COVID-19, mental health, public trust, and climate change.
It goes on to explain how it came about following the creation of the behavioural insights tool by the World Health Organization (WHO), which states that "public behaviour is one of the most critical elements of reducing virus transmission."
BeSciO intends to leverage its research on misinformation and public trust in PHAC to assess Canadians' intentions regarding public health actions. Antimicrobial stewardship, childhood vaccinations, mask wearing, mental health, and climate change are some of the upcoming project areas.
The IMPActS model, which entails identifying policy concerns, mapping desired changes, prototyping solutions, assessing efficacy, and scaling successful tactics, will be applied by them to impact perceptions and behaviours. Notably, they are working with the Vaccine Behaviour and Confidence Team of PHAC to assist regular childhood immunisation programs during the epidemic.
When behavioural science is used to subtly persuade people to comply, it frequently amounts to coercion and happens without the public's knowledge, weakening their sense of autonomy and confidence. It highlights the ethical issues of performing experiments on people without their knowledge and stresses the necessity for the agency to be transparent about these methods and how they affect public behaviour, especially in light of the millions of taxpayer dollars at stake.
[attachment deleted by admin]