The State of Health Journalism in the U.S., March 2009

Based on a literature review, a survey of healthcare journalists, and interviews, examines the effects of changes in the news media on its coverage of health issues and the impact of these trends on consumers. Explores challenges and implications

How Do US Journalists Cover Treatments, Tests, Products, and Procedures? An Evaluation of 500 Stories

HealthNewsReview.org evaluates US health news coverage of claims made about medical interventions. Gary Schwitzer reports on the project's findings after evaluation of 500 health news stories

What Are the Roles and Responsibilities of the Media in Disseminating Health Information?

Background to the debate: In December 2004 three news stories in the popular press suggested that the side effects of single-dose nevirapine, which has been proven to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, had been covered up. Many HIV experts believed that the stories were unwarranted and that they would undermine use of the drug, leading to a rise in neonatal HIV infection. The controversy surrounding these stories prompted the PLoS Medicine editors to ask health journalists, and others with an interest in media reporting of health, to share their views on the roles and responsibilities of the media in disseminating health information

Three randomized controlled trials evaluating the impact of “spin” in health news stories reporting studies of pharmacologic treatments on patients’/caregivers’ interpretation of treatment benefit

Background News stories represent an important source of information. We aimed to evaluate the impact of “spin” (i.e., misrepresentation of study results) in health news stories reporting studies of pharmacologic treatments on patients’/caregivers’ interpretation of treatment benefit. Methods We conducted three two-arm, parallel-group, Internet-based randomized trials (RCTs) comparing the interpretation of news stories reported with or without spin. Each RCT considered news stories reporting a different type of study: (1) pre-clinical study, (2) phase I/II non-RCT, and (3) phase III/IV RCT. For each type of study, we identified news stories reported with spin that had earned mention in the press. Two versions of the news stories were used: the version with spin and a version rewritten without spin. Participants were patients/caregivers involved in Inspire, a large online community of more than one million patients/caregivers. The primary outcome was participants’ interpretation assessed by one specific question “What do you think is the probability that ‘treatment X’ would be beneficial to patients?” (scale, 0 [very unlikely] to 10 [very likely]). Results For each RCT, 300 participants were randomly assigned to assess a news story with spin (n = 150) or without spin (n = 150), and 900 participants assessed a news story. Participants were more likely to consider that the treatment would be beneficial to patients when the news story was reported with spin. The mean (SD) score for the primary outcome for abstracts reported with and without spin for pre-clinical studies was 7.5 (2.2) versus 5.8 (2.8) (mean difference [95% CI] 1.7 [1.0–2.3], p < 0.001); for phase I/II non-randomized trials, 7.6 (2.2) versus 5.8 (2.7) (mean difference 1.8 [1.0–2.5], p < 0.001); and for phase III/IV RCTs, 7.2 (2.3) versus 4.9 (2.8) (mean difference 2.3 [1.4–3.2], p < 0.001). Conclusions Spin in health news stories reporting studies of pharmacologic treatments affects patients’/caregivers’ interpretation. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03094078 , NCT03094104 , NCT0309558

Correction to: Three randomized controlled trials evaluating the impact of “spin” in health news stories reporting studies of pharmacologic treatments on patients’/caregivers’ interpretation of treatment benefit

Figure 3 in the original article [1] is incorrect; labels for secondary outcomes have been shifted and do not correspond to the numbers reported in the table (Additional file 8). The corrected version can be seen ahead. This figure should be used over the figure 3 seen in the original article. This error does not affect the results, interpretation, or conclusion