The 9th International Conference on Public Communication of Science and Technology SCIENCE COMMUNICATION AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING INFECTIOUS DISEASES: COMMUNITY SELECTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMMUNICATION PROGRAM Laura Vargas-Parada , Salvador Garcia, Karla Villar, Aida Castilleja, Ulises Rodriguez, Monica Lozano Unidad de Periodismo Cientifico, Direccion General de Divulgacion de la Ciencia, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico y Direccion de Investigacion, Hospital General Dr. Manuel Gea Gonzalez, SSA. Abstract Can we use science communication as a tool for preventing infectious diseases? Our aim is to develop a communicative programme that promotes critical thinking in the participants, using team work to encourage them to think, propose and implement action and intervention plans that help improve community’s health and well being. Moreover, through a process of knowledge appropriation, we seek that the program promotes risk behaviour modification. The programme will take into account ethnological, sociological and marketing aspects in order to make learning more appealing. It is directed to young people between 12 to 25 years old, although the participation of the community as a whole is fundamental in order for the programme to have success. As a working model we are using taeniosis-cysticercosis caused by the parasite worm Taenia solium. Here we present results of the initial community selection process and the progress in the development of the communicative programme. Keywords: Science communication, critical thinking, community’s health, Taenia solium, taeniosis-cysticercosis 1. Introduction “¿How can great discoveries be useful if there are no means of making them accessible to all?” Alexander von Humboldt In more than a decade that I’ve been working with infectious diseases from a basic science perspective, I have come to the conclusion that many of these diseases could be prevented if a person were given the chance to understand which human activities increases the risk to acquire a certain disease and the advantage of avoiding infection. Teaching people how diseases are transmitted, how to improve their sanitary behaviour, how to avoid vector bites, etc., have been shown to have an impact in disease prevention. However, some of the educational programs tested so far, had as a main problem that once the program concludes, people return to their original behaviour. Moreover, although health education interventions increase the level of knowledge of the population, modification of risk practices are less apparent, suggesting that changes in knowledge does not necessarily modify behaviour [1]. My hypothesis is that educative interventions do not have an impact in modifying risk practices because they use a non-feedback unidirectional (only informative) model of communication [2], which prevents the participants from forming their own ideas and conclusions. People are never allowed to draw evidence-based conclusions in order to understand and make decisions about the natural world and the conditions, where a specific disease is transmitted. What is more, they are never allowed to develop scientific thinking, which would promote the capacity to use the recently learned scientific knowledge. It is at this point where science communication becomes important. In order to be able to appropriate knowledge, people needs to place the information they receive in a context in which it makes sense with their own everyday experience. Our aim, as a multidisciplinary group, is to develop a communicative programme that allows the participants to “discover” facts about health and hygiene in their community through the systematic use of the scientific method. This bidirectional model of communication would promote knowledge acquisition and appropriation by means of observation, argumentation and deduction (scientific method and inquiry). Then, through in- depth analysis, it is expected that the participants will be able to identify, analyze and propose solutions to solve community’s health problems, including modifying personal risk behaviours. As a working model we are using taeniosis-cysticercosis (TC) caused by the parasite worm Taenia solium. T. solium life cycle alternates between man as a definitive host and pigs as intermediate hosts (Figure 1). The adult worm inhabits human small intestine causing taeniosis, a mild disease that usually produce no symptoms. The adult worm, which is hermaphrodite, produces thousands of eggs that are excreted during defecation. Pigs get infected when they ingest human faeces containing segments of the adult parasite or eggs. Each egg has the potential to become a cysticercus, the larval stage of the parasite, causing swine cysticercosis. The cycle ends when man eats improperly cooked pork meat that contains cysticerci. Cysticerci adhere to the wall of the intestine where they mature into the adult worm. Inadequate hygienic measures associated to the worm carrier may cause accidental ingestion of eggs by man, causing human cysticercosis. Infection of the nervous system is called neurocysticercosis and may cause death [3, 4].