Health and medical coverage in the UK national press

Abstract

The growth of UK public interest in health in the last decade is reflected by the inclusion in most national newspapers of regular health or medical sections. These potentially allow subjects to be covered in detail, with more background information and useful advice. This paper reports on a content analysis study of eight national newspapers, which aimed to obtain an overview of press health coverage, to compare the coverage of popular and quality papers, and to analyse differences in health topic coverage between 1981 and 1990. The subject coverage, information provision and presentation of health related articles were considered. The most common subject categories were diseases, preventive medicine (including diet and exercise) and the National Health Service. Class inequalities in health received very little coverage. Clear differences were confirmed between quality broadsheet and popular tabloid newspapers. Quality papers provided more scientific information about health and paid more attention to political contexts. They made more use of authoritative journals and reports than popular papers, which focused on individual case histories and tended to quote a lay viewpoint. Popular press articles were generally more sensationalized and less objective in their reporting style. Newspapers do not exist solely to further public understanding, but have potential to contribute to it. Some informative, useful articles about health are found, but the study shows room for improvement, especially among the papers whose readership is concentrated in lower socio-economic groups.