The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #66529

Vicki L. Collie, BSW¹, Matthew W. Kreuter, PhD, MPH², Sarah Boslaugh, PhD³, Charlene Caburnay, MPH¹, and Douglas Luke, PhD¹. (1) Health Communication Research Laboratory, Saint Louis University, 3545 Lafayette Ave., St. Louis, MO 63104, 314/977-4036, collievl@slu.edu, (2) Health Communication Research Laboratory, School of Public Health, Saint Louis University, 3545 Lafayette Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63104, (3) Health Communications Research Laboratory, Saint Louis University, 3545 Lafayette Ave, 4th floor, St. Louis, MO 63104

News media are an important tool for disseminating health information. The Public Arena Model suggests that there is a limited capacity to cover social problems in the media, and thus stories must compete with each other for coverage. This study examines the competition that may exist between stories whose dominant topic is physical activity, diet/nutrition, or tobacco, and characterizes features of stories on each topic. We conducted a content analysis of national news service stories (e.g. the Associated Press) (n= 1297) published in four daily newspapers in Missouri from 2/1/99 to 1/31/02. Articles were coded on dominant topic and characteristics such as research mention, prevention focus, and framing strategy. Preliminary results indicate that the total number of stories did not significantly change over the three-year period (Cox and Stuart test for trend = .34), but diet/nutrition stories significantly decreased (p< .05), while stories on physical activity showed a non-significant increase and tobacco stories a non-significant decrease. Almost all tobacco stories were covered as news while physical activity was most likely to be covered as a feature (95.4 % vs. 37.8% ; p< .001). Diet/nutrition stories were the most likely to focus on prevention (84.1%; p<.001). Physical activity and diet/nutrition stories were significantly more likely than tobacco stories to focus on personal mobilization (p<.001). These results can help public health professionals to understand how topic must be framed and reframed to maximize the coverage the topic may receive.

Learning Objectives:

• To identify elements of a story that could contribute to making the topic more newsworthy.
• To characterize how coverage of three different health topics differ, in terms of the elements of the story.

Keywords: Media, Health Promotion

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.