Fences too far? Prevention, Health Education and Promotion

On my community visits I see many horses out in the fields. There are 'horses' in information systems too:

What are "horses"?

“As an intentional nod to Clever Hans, a 'horse' is just a system that is not actually addressing the problem it appears to be solving.” (Sturm, 2014).

In healthcare we keep talking about the need for more emphasis on prevention, health education and promotion. So much of what we do is not futile, despite the growing^* debate on euthanasia, but as a 'system' that incorporates and enacts prevention, health education and health promoting principles (and literacies) we continue to fail. In short, the healthcare system is a horse as defined by Sturm.

I'm certain - even without evidence (intuition influenced by the quality^# media?) that public health AND public mental health have been going backwards. Or if you like, the politicians keep talking the talk but this is limited to the political domain (or paddock)? So many promises in the form of committees, consultations, green, white papers that could be betting slips. In fact the government seems to favour those betting slips or the associated behaviours that produce tax revenue as opposed to the 25 year cross-party plan that would really herald change. This level of change will take longer and would be realised in younger people. Perhaps there are signs of change as many young adults eschew drugs and alcohol (UK)..?

There are two ways in which Hodges' model is a horse; or not:

1. Firstly, there is (still) no information system based on Hodges' model that might appear to be solving a problem.
2. Secondly, Hodges' model has not really had the opportunity to address the health and social care problem. As such it cannot be judged in such equestrian terms.

In the meantime the horses remain in their respective paddocks. Some are racing about, others jumping, a group do dressage, while increasing others are out to pasture - they graze and neigh-say (everything is fine DO carry on)!

^*Whatever one's respective views this debate will grow - a consequence of demographics driven through the heart of the political divide.
^#A sticky wicket then?

B. L. Sturm, “A simple method to determine if a music information retrieval system is a 'horse',” IEEE Trans. Multimedia 16(6):1636–1644, 2014. Winner of the 2017 IEEE Transactions on Multimedia Prize Paper Award.

My source: B. L. Sturm email to: http://digitalhumanities.org/humanist

HORSE2017

On “Horses” in Applied Machine Learning

Research workshop, QMUL, London

Wednesday 20 September 2017, approx. 9h30-17h 

Location: Arts One Lecture Theatre, QMUL, London E1 4NS

http://c4dm.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/horse2017/