Could airlines add a safe coughing/sneezing demonstration to the pre-flight safety briefing?

On the flight on which I wrote this, the woman directly behind me began coughing as the plane left the gate.  Not a light, clearing one's throat kind of cough. It was a hacking, raking cough. Then, a passenger in the row in front of me coughed. I begin imagining air flow patterns, attempting to map the path of airborne viruses.  I was thinking of a polite way to ask the woman behind me to please cough into her elbow, when she stopped.  Perhaps I should still have asked.

The purpose of these briefings is to prepare passengers for emergencies. I would classify pandemic influenza as an emergency. I would even classify the ability of air travel to spread seasonal flu as a public health situation worthy of attention.  Pre-flight safety briefings are given in the hope that those actions need never be taken.  Safe coughing/sneezing education, however, would target a situation that likely occurs on every flight.

CDC provides guidance to airline flight crews.  The subject of in-flight transmission of influenza has been discussed in the British Medical Journal.

Very few passengers seem to pay attention to the safety briefings these days.  Perhaps changing things up would rekindle our interest.

I recall a CDC presentation on H1N1 pevention information dissemination, retention, and compliance that stated individuals need to hear a message from 5 separate sources for the message to be ingrained.  He is a short list of potential channels for coughing safety messages.

1 - Verbal pre-flight safety briefing.
2 - Demonstration by flight attendants
3 - Instruction stickers on seatback tray tables
4 - Similar illustrations in inflight magazines and shopping catalogs
5 - PSAs during inflight video entertainment
6 - Instruction slides on monitors that display flight/boarding information at airport gates
7 - PSA signs at airports

A single multicultural design depicting safe coughing/sneezing instructions could be used for numbers 3-7. This, as well as video PSAs, would be an outstanding opportunity for a contest or challenge, organized by airlines, airports, or even public health agencies.  CDC already has a set called Cover Your Cough, although a contest or challenge would have the added benefits of increasing public awareness of this issue and empowering citizens as part of the solution.

I understand that the content of pre-flight briefings is mandated by the FAA. Altering that content, as I suggest in numbers 1 and 2, would be a massive endeavor.

While we're working our way through that process, there's no reason airlines and airports couldn't voluntarily implement numbers 3-7.

I'd love feedback on how we might further develop this idea and present it to those in a position to implement it.

Reading Alisha Miles’ post Declaring Information Bankruptcy reminded me of a fundamental change that's been occurring in my life over the past few years.

I was a hoarder. Not the kind you see on television shows where the house if full of things, or worse, animals. I was a digital hoarder. I hoarded things I found online.  I don't think I was alone in this.  Not by a long shot.  Alisha mentioned 2,000+ RSS feeds.  Stories about illegal music downloading mention persons with tens of thousands of songs.  Digital content is essentially effortless to save.  For a consumer, simply click the Save button.  If you run out of hard drive space, upgrade to a larger drive.  Better yet, push the “Click to migrate to the cloud” button.

How do we organize and manage this data?  Better search.  Better filters.  But are we actually throwing away what's left after we filter?  Organization and management are futile exercises, if the information we organize and manage does not add value in our lives.

Case 1: Podcasts

Two of my favorite podcasts are from DJs who post their sets, two hours of continuous music.  They upload a new set every week.  I started rating them, not deleting my favorites, so I could listen to them another time (which I did not do).  Never mind the fact that I had 10’s of backlogged sets to which I still hadn’t listened.  Add to that, my other podcasts, which all have backlogs of unheard episodes.  There is more new content in my podcast directory than I have time in which I can listen.

I started deleting these DJ sets, regardless of their “rating.”  I now enjoy listening to the podcasts even more, as I spend less time evaluating and more time immersed in listening.

Case 2: RSS feeds

I recently paired down my Google Reader feeds to ~15.  Any feed that hadn't been read in the last month was deleted.  Now, not only do I look forward more to the few feeds I have, I feel there is room to explore new ideas and perhaps add a new feed, though my selection criteria has increased dramatically.  Space in my Google Reader feed list, though essentially unlimited, has a much greater value.  As for what's left, I now find I read more thoughtfully, taking each post in and reflecting on it.

One could argue that these examples are distinct from content we generate through the course of our work or personal lives, such as documents or photographs.  Then again, the photographer at a friend’s wedding, where I was Best Man, took over 2,000 photographs.  I started to go through them to pick a couple to print.  Eventually, I became overwhelmed and bookmarked the site.  I still haven't printed any photos.

Life is ephemeral.  The less things I have, the more I value the things that remain.