What makes people more afraid of a plane crash than a car accident, even though the risk of being in a car accident is much higher?
 |
In her research, Lemyre focusses on how people's normal functioning influences behaviour, stress, and state of health and wellbeing, especially when it comes to understanding and reacting to the environment. These psychosocial aspects of health are the perceptions, the thoughts, the emotions, the mental processes: everything that makes people act one way or another.
“Linked to physiology – even though it is still unknown what connects the physical with thought – psychosocial aspects are also linked to the social environment, since identity and values, and social support have direct repercussions on human reaction and on health,” says Lemyre.
People have a tendency to overestimate unlikely scenarios and underestimate more common ones. This necessitates that probability and human perception must be integrated in risk management and in planning government programs. The chair's research work, particularly that on the perception of the risk of terrorism, has already aroused the interest of Health Canada and other Canadian ministries, as well as groups on the international stage.
Lemyre points to the example of mad cow disease.
“Society could handle one sick cow, but that's not what caused the economy to sag or what brought about such serious consequences for farmers. People are not only reacting to one cow, but to a threat. This has to be incorporated into our management plans.”
This is how government agencies and communities have to develop resources to improve social support, to give people a sense of control and knowledge of resources available for facing adversity.
There is greater study of population health as a whole, especially in Canada. This is contributing to a new vision of health that goes well beyond illness and is more directed at the development of the individual and the community.
The R. Samuel McLaughlin Chair in Psychosocial Aspects of Risk and Health, which is part of the University of Ottawa's Institute of Population Health (IPH), is a multi-faculty, interdisciplinary chair. The University of Ottawa distinguishes itself on the Canadian scene by giving priority to interdisciplinarity, an approach Lemyre wholeheartedly embraces.
“The key objective is the integration of knowledge and methods of questioning. And in order to integrate social and psychosocial factors into our understanding of health phenomena, when it comes to research facilities, we have to put a stop to isolation and unite our forces.”
