Media coverage of health issues and how to work more effectively with journalists: a qualitative study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The mass media has enormous potential to influence health-related behaviours and perceptions. Much research has focused on how the media frames health issues. This study sought to explore how journalists in Australia select and shape news on health issues.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study involved semi-structured interviews with 16 journalists from major Australian print, radio and television media organisations reporting on avian influenza and pandemic planning. Journalists, including reporters, editors and producers, were interviewed between October 2006 and August 2007. Thematic analysis was used to draw out major lessons for health communicators.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Journalists routinely attempted to balance different, sometimes competing, aims amidst significant operational constraints. They perceived the most trusted sources on health issues to be respected and independent doctors. Specialist health and medical reporters had a more sound technical knowledge, channels to appropriate sources, power within their organisations, and ability to advocate for better quality coverage.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>An awareness of how to work with the media is essential for health communicators. This includes understanding journalists' daily routines, being available, providing resources, and building relationships with specialist health reporters.</p

Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY), an endemic syndrome influencing Environmental Policies

Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY), an endemic syndrome influencing Environmental Policie

Understanding non-vaccinating parents\u27 views to inform and improve clinical encounters: A qualitative study in an Australian community

Objectives: To explain vaccination refusal in a sample of Australian parents. Design: Qualitative design, purposive sampling in a defined population. Setting: A geographically bounded community of approximately 30 000 people in regional Australia with high prevalence of vaccination refusal. Participants: Semi structured interviews with 32 non-vaccinating parents: 9 fathers, 22 mothers and 1 pregnant woman. Purposive sampling of parents who had decided to discontinue or decline all vaccinations for their children. Recruitment: via local advertising then snowballing. Results: Thematic analysis focused on explaining decision-making pathways of parents who refuse vaccination. Common patterns in parents\u27 accounts included: perceived deterioration in health in Western societies; a personal experience introducing doubt about vaccine safety; concerns regarding consent; varied encounters with health professionals (dismissive, hindering and helpful); a quest for the real truth\u27; reactance to system inflexibilities and ongoing risk assessment. Conclusions: We suggest responses tailored to the perspectives of non-vaccinating parents to assist professionals in understanding and maintaining empathic clinical relationships with this important patient group

Associations between exposure to and expression of negative opinions about Human Papillomavirus vaccines on social media: an observational study

Background Groups and individuals that seek to negatively influence public opinion about the safety and value of vaccination are active in online and social media and may influence decision making within some communities. Objective We sought to measure whether exposure to negative opinions about human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines in Twitter communities is associated with the subsequent expression of negative opinions by explicitly measuring potential information exposure over the social structure of Twitter communities. Methods We hypothesized that prior exposure to opinions rejecting the safety or value of HPV vaccines would be associated with an increased risk of posting similar opinions and tested this hypothesis by analyzing temporal sequences of messages posted on Twitter (tweets). The study design was a retrospective analysis of tweets related to HPV vaccines and the social connections between users. Between October 2013 and April 2014, we collected 83,551 English-language tweets that included terms related to HPV vaccines and the 957,865 social connections among 30,621 users posting or reposting the tweets. Tweets were classified as expressing negative or neutral/positive opinions using a machine learning classifier previously trained on a manually labeled sample. Results During the 6-month period, 25.13% (20,994/83,551) of tweets were classified as negative; among the 30,621 users that tweeted about HPV vaccines, 9046 (29.54%) were exposed to a majority of negative tweets. The likelihood of a user posting a negative tweet after exposure to a majority of negative opinions was 37.78% (2780/7361) compared to 10.92% (1234/11,296) for users who were exposed to a majority of positive and neutral tweets corresponding to a relative risk of 3.46 (95% CI 3.25-3.67, P<.001). Conclusions The heterogeneous community structure on Twitter appears to skew the information to which users are exposed in relation to HPV vaccines. We found that among users that tweeted about HPV vaccines, those who were more often exposed to negative opinions were more likely to subsequently post negative opinions. Although this research may be useful for identifying individuals and groups currently at risk of disproportionate exposure to misinformation about HPV vaccines, there is a clear need for studies capable of determining the factors that affect the formation and adoption of beliefs about public health interventions

Target the fence-sitters

Past waves of vaccine rejection in industrialized nations have a lot to teach us about preventing future ones