Newspaper Coverage as Indirect Effects of a Health Communication Intervention

Abstract

News coverage is associated with a variety of health behaviors, but studies have yet to assess the indirect effects of news coverage generated by a health promotion campaign. The Florida Tobacco Control Program (FTCP), a youth-led marketing and grassroots campaign launched in Florida in 1998, provides the opportunity to examine the effects of program-related newspaper coverage on youth smoking behavior. Articles were collected from Florida daily newspapers, content analyzed to identify the prevalence of topic-specific coverage, and merged by county and year to the Florida Youth Tobacco Survey, a statewide, representative survey of Florida middle school and high school students administered between 1998 and 2002. Trend comparisons and logistic regression models, controlling for alternate explanations, show that FTCP newspaper coverage (particularly coverage of youth advocacy efforts) contributed to observed declines in current smoking. Newspaper coverage of health communication campaigns may represent a meaningful, indirect source of campaign effects.