Hype, hysteria, and women's health risks: The role of the media

Abstract

B reast cancer. Unintended pregnancies. Birth control pills. Access to abortion. Female HIV infection and AIDS. Heart disease and high blood pressure. Lung cancer and You've come a long way, baby cigarette advertising. Maternal drug and alcohol abuse and fetal effects. Date rape and domestic violence. Infant mortality. Childbirth and cesarean section. Osteoporosis and calcium. Menopause and hormone therapy. What's a woman to worry about? Almost everything, it seems, and almost everyone has gotten into the act. Once ignored or underemphasized in medical research and public policy, the risks women face and the care they receive are now of increasing interest to members of the medical and public health communities, politicians, insurance companies, consumers, and, of course, the media. Twenty years after the pioneering consumer health book Our Bodies, Ourselves was published, women's health is in the public eye more than ever before. The topic has jumped from back-of-the-book Style and sections to the news pages and from daytime talk shows to network prime time. Women's magazines have toughened their coverage to tackle controversial topics like contraception, AIDS, and abortion in addition to more traditional staples of diet, exercise, and cosmetic surgery. Old taboos about public decency have given way to more explicit graphics and language about sex, sexuality, and sexual organs. But increased coverage does not necessarily mean better coverage or more informed consumers, particularly when the topics involve complicated, often unresolved, debates of science and policy. There is a great need for improvement of current media coverage of women's health, the scientific knowledge base, and the opportunities for reducing risks and improving health status through personal action and the nation's health care delivery system. The challenges for improving future coverage do not rest on the shoulders of journalists alone, however. The news makers in women's health, particularly researchers and public officials, must take more time to help sort the wheat from the chaff in new findings, explain what is known and not known, provide more balanced commentary on contentious issues, and help the media and their audiences understand the larger context of a given health problem. © 1993 by The Jacobs Inst i tute of W o m e n ' s Heal th 1049-3867/93/$6.00