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The reporting of theoretical health risks by the media: Canadian newspaper reporting of potential blood transmission of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

BACKGROUND: The media play an important role at the interface of science and policy by communicating scientific information to the public and policy makers. In issues of theoretical risk, in which there is scientific uncertainty, the media's role as disseminators of information is particularly...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Wilson, Kumanan, Code, Catherine, Dornan, Christopher, Ahmad, Nadya, Hébert, Paul, Graham, Ian
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2004
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC320488/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14706119
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-4-1
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author Wilson, Kumanan
Code, Catherine
Dornan, Christopher
Ahmad, Nadya
Hébert, Paul
Graham, Ian
author_facet Wilson, Kumanan
Code, Catherine
Dornan, Christopher
Ahmad, Nadya
Hébert, Paul
Graham, Ian
author_sort Wilson, Kumanan
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The media play an important role at the interface of science and policy by communicating scientific information to the public and policy makers. In issues of theoretical risk, in which there is scientific uncertainty, the media's role as disseminators of information is particularly important due to the potential to influence public perception of the severity of the risk. In this article we describe how the Canadian print media reported the theoretical risk of blood transmission of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). METHODS: We searched 3 newspaper databases for articles published by 6 major Canadian daily newspapers between January 1990 and December 1999. We identified all articles relating to blood transmission of CJD. In duplicate we extracted information from the articles and entered the information into a qualitative software program. We compared the observations obtained from this content analysis with information obtained from a previous policy analysis examining the Canadian blood system's decision-making concerning the potential transfusion transmission of CJD. RESULTS: Our search identified 245 relevant articles. We observed that newspapers in one instance accelerated a policy decision, which had important resource and health implication, by communicating information on risk to the public. We also observed that newspapers primarily relied upon expert opinion (47 articles) as opposed to published medical evidence (28 articles) when communicating risk information. Journalists we interviewed described the challenges of balancing their responsibility to raise awareness of potential health threats with not unnecessarily arousing fear amongst the public. CONCLUSIONS: Based on our findings we recommend that journalists report information from both expert opinion sources and from published studies when communicating information on risk. We also recommend researchers work more closely with journalists to assist them in identifying and appraising relevant scientific information on risk.
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spelling pubmed-3204882004-01-28 The reporting of theoretical health risks by the media: Canadian newspaper reporting of potential blood transmission of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease Wilson, Kumanan Code, Catherine Dornan, Christopher Ahmad, Nadya Hébert, Paul Graham, Ian BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: The media play an important role at the interface of science and policy by communicating scientific information to the public and policy makers. In issues of theoretical risk, in which there is scientific uncertainty, the media's role as disseminators of information is particularly important due to the potential to influence public perception of the severity of the risk. In this article we describe how the Canadian print media reported the theoretical risk of blood transmission of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). METHODS: We searched 3 newspaper databases for articles published by 6 major Canadian daily newspapers between January 1990 and December 1999. We identified all articles relating to blood transmission of CJD. In duplicate we extracted information from the articles and entered the information into a qualitative software program. We compared the observations obtained from this content analysis with information obtained from a previous policy analysis examining the Canadian blood system's decision-making concerning the potential transfusion transmission of CJD. RESULTS: Our search identified 245 relevant articles. We observed that newspapers in one instance accelerated a policy decision, which had important resource and health implication, by communicating information on risk to the public. We also observed that newspapers primarily relied upon expert opinion (47 articles) as opposed to published medical evidence (28 articles) when communicating risk information. Journalists we interviewed described the challenges of balancing their responsibility to raise awareness of potential health threats with not unnecessarily arousing fear amongst the public. CONCLUSIONS: Based on our findings we recommend that journalists report information from both expert opinion sources and from published studies when communicating information on risk. We also recommend researchers work more closely with journalists to assist them in identifying and appraising relevant scientific information on risk. BioMed Central 2004-01-05 /pmc/articles/PMC320488/ /pubmed/14706119 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-4-1 Text en Copyright © 2004 Wilson et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article's original URL.
spellingShingle Research Article
Wilson, Kumanan
Code, Catherine
Dornan, Christopher
Ahmad, Nadya
Hébert, Paul
Graham, Ian
The reporting of theoretical health risks by the media: Canadian newspaper reporting of potential blood transmission of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
title The reporting of theoretical health risks by the media: Canadian newspaper reporting of potential blood transmission of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
title_full The reporting of theoretical health risks by the media: Canadian newspaper reporting of potential blood transmission of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
title_fullStr The reporting of theoretical health risks by the media: Canadian newspaper reporting of potential blood transmission of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
title_full_unstemmed The reporting of theoretical health risks by the media: Canadian newspaper reporting of potential blood transmission of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
title_short The reporting of theoretical health risks by the media: Canadian newspaper reporting of potential blood transmission of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
title_sort reporting of theoretical health risks by the media: canadian newspaper reporting of potential blood transmission of creutzfeldt-jakob disease
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC320488/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14706119
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-4-1
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