Health-related Media Content Research Articles

Development and Validation of the Adolescent Media Health Literacy Scales: Rasch Measurement Model Approach.

BackgroundHigh media use has been implicated in negative social and health outcomes among adolescents. Therefore, it is critical that adolescents develop skills to healthily engage with media content. Media health literacy (MHL), skills for assessing and responding to health-related media content, and potentially targetable moderators for the relationship between media use and health-related outcomes are understudied in adolescents. The lack of MHL assessment tools may have contributed to this research gap.ObjectiveThis study aimed to develop and validate test-based scales of adolescents’ MHL.MethodsThe items developed were vetted iteratively via community reviews and cognitive interviews to establish content and face validity. Adolescents (N=355) completed a questionnaire that included the revised MHL items. The scales (Recognition/Identification, Influence/Critical Analysis, and Action/Reaction) were validated using Rasch measurement models. Convergent validity was assessed by correlating the summed scores of the three scales with existing functional and internet-related health literacy measures. Criterion validity was assessed by modeling logistic regressions for predicting health literacy–related behaviors from each scale after controlling for demographics. Effect sizes were estimated, and a short form was also validated.ResultsThe final MHL scales (Recognition/Identification, Influence/Critical Analysis, and Action/Reaction) fit their Rasch models. The 9-item Recognition/Identification and 9-item Influence/Critical Analysis scales had good convergent validity with functional and internet-related health literacy measures and were positively related to reading instructions before taking medicines and questioning the truthfulness of health information found online. The 12-item MHL Scales-Short Form also had good convergent and criterion validity. However, convergent and criterion validity were not established for the 3-item Action/Reaction Scale.ConclusionsThe Recognition/Identification and Influence/Critical Analysis scales and the MHL Scales-Short Form may be used to determine the impact of MHL on media use and health outcome relationships and ultimately inform the development of interventions and policies to affect these relationships in multiple settings.

Rating the Valence of Media Content about Electronic Cigarettes Using Crowdsourcing: Testing Rater Instructions and Estimating the Optimal Number of Raters

ABSTRACT Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) are a controversial public health topic due to their increasing popularity among youth and the uncertainty about their risks and benefits. Researchers have started to assess the valence of media content about e-cigarette use, mostly using expert coding. The current study aims to offer a methodological framework and guideline when using crowdsourcing to rate the valence of e-cigarette media content. Specifically, we present (1) an experiment to determine rating instructions that would result in reliable valence ratings and (2) an analysis to identify the optimal number of raters needed to replicate these ratings. Specifically, we compared ratings produced by crowdsourced raters instructed to rate from several different perspectives (e.g., objective vs. subjective) and determined the instructions that led to reliable ratings. We then used bootstrapping methods and a set of criteria to identify the minimum number of raters needed to replicate these ratings. Results suggested that when rating e-cigarette valence, instructing raters to rate from their own subjective perspective produced reliable results, and nine raters were deemed the optimal number of raters. We expect these findings to inform future content analyses of e-cigarette valence. The study procedures can be applied to crowdsourced content analyses of other health-related media content to determine appropriate rating instructions and the number of raters.

<b>The Candlin Researcher Award:</b> Balancing journalists’ and scientists’ professional practices: Producing an infotainment show about food and nutrition in the age of healthism and soft news

This paper analyses how health-related media content is produced by the editorial board of an infotainment TV show on food. Health-related news and other media content is on the rise, and impacts laypeople’s health knowledge, their behaviour, the public agenda and governmental policy. At the same time, it is criticized for being inaccurate, badly framed and sensationalist. This is generally attributed to the difficulty of linearly ‘translating’ scientific findings into journalistic findings, which results in the collision between scientific and journalistic perspectives and practices. This paper questions the idea that producing health-related media content is just linear translation, and looks into how two current societal trends, the rise of healthism and soft news, shape the production process. Drawing on linguistic ethnographic data from fieldwork at the editorial board of the show, two case studies are analysed qualitatively and in-depth to gain deeper insight in the complex dynamics of producing health-related media content. The data show that producing health-related media-content indeed is not a matter of translating biomedical science to a journalistic perspective, but of intense coproduction of journalistic and scientific practices, and nowadays as well as of coproduction with new, non-scientific pseudo-experts and pseudo-scientific practices.

Health Promotion Through the Media: Challenges and Opportunities

Aim: The world is changing from day to day, developing new tools of communication. The greatest tool developed in the 21 st century is the media. Media provides news of all kinds, including health information. The aim of this study is to describe the role of media, analyzed according to the case study of swine flu news in newspapers in Turkey. Method: This study seeks to examine the way in which swine flu (and the subsequent actions and discussion) was reported in the Turkish press, with particular attention to the framing devices used and the factors that might influence these framing decisions. Newspapers were chosen to represent the media as the design of the study. Influenza-related news for two consecutive years was chosen as the analytical subject; 575 related news reports were found. Results: There were 496 news reports in the first study year, and 50 in the second. Influenza news occurred primarily (300 news sources) between October-December 2009, while only 14 appeared during the same period in the second year. It was observed that the news pieces were initially located on first pages/covers and the upper part of the pages, covering larger areas. Disease and prevention related pictures were chosen at the crisis point, in particular. In the second year, the area occupied by swine flu news was smaller, occurring on inner pages and written by reporters (p<0.05). Conclusion: Health-related media content is provided when the subject is high on the public agenda, and if the issue poses a threat to the society, such as during crisis periods. In fact, protection is more important for health, so that health related topics should be provided in advance of crisis periods. KeywordsHealth; News; Communications Media; Newspapers; Pandemic

What to Eat in the Land of Cheese and Chocolate: A Content Analysis of Swiss Print Media Messages on a Healthy Diet

This paper describes a specific coding scheme for measuring health-related media content on the level of single assertions and in relative complexity. The basic idea is to code messages into an if-part (nutrition, physical activity, body weight) and a then-part (weight and health). Detailed codeplans can then be used to determine the specific nature of the if- and then-parts of an assertion. An exemplary analysis of Swiss-German newspaper and magazine messages between March 1, 2003 and June 30, 2005 provides evidence of recommendations that are more or less in line with official suggestions for a healthy diet: Newspapers and magazines tell their readers to eat vegetables, fruit, grain and cereal products, dairy products, and to care about vitamin and minerals intake. They also advise to stay away from tobacco, alcohol, fast food, sugar, and animal fat. Results are interpreted as evidence for the existence of a rather good source for diet information in print media, which is, however, very likely to be counteracted by other media content.

The HPV vaccine and the media: How has the topic been covered and what are the effects on knowledge about the virus and cervical cancer?

ObjectiveIn June 2006, the first vaccine for HPV was approved by the FDA and media coverage about the topic increased significantly. This study sought to explore the nature of the coverage and whether knowledge about HPV was affected by it. MethodsA content analysis, including 321 news stories from major newspapers, the AP wire and television news networks was conducted. A monthly RDD-recruited Internet survey with a national sample (n=3323) was used to assess changes in population knowledge. ResultsTwenty-three percent of stories did not mention the sexually transmitted nature of the disease and 80% left out information about the need for continued cervical cancer screening after vaccination. Exposure to health-related media content was significantly associated with knowledge about HPV, even controlling for baseline knowledge (OR=1.62, 95% CI=1.12–2.35). ConclusionsChanges in the volume of coverage over time were associated with knowledge about HPV, but the content analysis reveals that many of the stories were missing important information. Practice implicationsClinicians must consider the potential media source patients are using for HPV-related information in order to correct inaccurate or incomplete information that could affect health behavior.