*THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA IN THE AREA OF PUBLIC HEALTH

News travels fast – and it has never travelled faster than in today’s world of instant information. The mass media have a powerful influence on people’s perceptions of risks, whether from a new disease epidemic, deliberate attacks or natural catastrophes. The Internet, television, radio, newspapers and magazines are the most influential sources of everyday information on risks to health.

How should the media evaluate and communicate information on health risks such as avian influenza or SARS? Such situations challenge the media to be responsible when dealing with complicated scientific issues and conflicting political goals. What information should be conveyed? How fully should uncertainties and controversies be explained to the public?

In covering health issues, the media perform two major functions: they explain and report scientific information and government policies for the public and, at the same time, reflect the concerns of the general public. Health related events such as chemical accidents, medical research discoveries, communicable disease epidemics and safety defects in new medicines are all likely to make headlines. Government press releases, scientists and international scientific journals are often their main sources of information. Journalists tend to use the best-organized sources and those press releases that encapsulate technical information in lay terms. In addition, international news organizations frequently syndicatehealth-risk stories around the world.

According to a study by the Nuffield Trust, mass communication can either heighten levels of anxiety or provide reassurance at times of acute public health events. Authorities such as governments may use the mass media, but can seldom keep control of the information delivered. They have to strike a difficult balance between saying too much and saying too little: one course of action may cause an overreaction, the other may seem complacent.

Mass communication has both a positive and negative potential for risk perception. When no information about health risks is provided through official channels, the media will find it elsewhere and their reports may create or heighten a sense of anxiety. For those in authority, doing or saying nothing has become a dangerous strategy. For example, early reports of a disease outbreak are often alarmist, as was shown in the case of the SARS outbreak in 2003. This can establish a baseline of accepted facts or beliefs that may be difficult to correct when more and especially more accurate information becomesavailable.

 On the other hand, mass communications can be used to reassure the public. In this respect, the role of WHO during SARS is instructive,says the Nuffield Trust study. As a trusted international body it was able to use mass communication to inform and reassure anxious publics. Indeed, the speed of modern communication can even be a reassurance in itself: as SARS demonstrated, modern communication technology allowed the rapid exchange of information which allowed better preventative action, while the exchange of scientific data through secure web sites, etc. allowed the SARS genome to be identified remarkably quickly.

The study says health professionals and in particular professional bodies have a role to play in reassuring the public over the risks involved, but such responses need to be agile and perceived as independent and authoritative.

THE WORLD HEALTH REPORT 2007

WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION

http://www.who.int/whr/2007/07_chap5_en.pdf

QUESTIONS:

1. Explain what the World Health Organisation is.

2. Do you consider avian flu to be a serious health problem in the world? Why?

3. Is your perception of risk influenced by the media? Explain.

4. Why is an agile response important in reassuring people who are seriously concerned about a health risk?

5. Why is it important for our government to be transparent and to communicate information to the public quickly and honestly?

6. Did you find the above article useful? Explain.