In a 2004 survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, an independent group that analyzes public opinions toward the press, politics and public policy, 59% of respondents said they regularly watched local news. Yet many health-related media studies have concentrated only on print news.

In the new study, led by James Pribble, an emergency room doctor at the University of Michigan, and Kenneth Goldstein, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, researchers watched recordings of local newscasts originally used for political analysis to pick apart how local television covers health.

Pribble found that many news stories did not put the health topics in context.

	How the study was done
	From a representative sample of 122 stations in the nation's top 50 media markets, researchers examined recordings of news shows from October 2002. Two teams, one of them with a medical background and one without, organized the recordings by subject and later analyzed their content. The researchers found that 40% of broadcasts had at least one health story, and those stories took up 11% of airtime that did not include sports or weather. The average time given to broadcasts of health stories was 33 seconds.

For instance, West Nile virus, which is transmitted through mosquito bites, was the subject of 9% of health stories aired, the second most popular health topic behind breast cancer. More attention should have been paid to other infectious diseases with higher fatality rates, he said.

"In contrast (to the West Nile virus), the flu kills tens of thousands of people each year," he said.

Many of the broadcasts also did not talk about how to avoid being bitten by a mosquito or what to do if bitten. "We probably could have saved a lot of people from getting infected," Pribble said.

Maria Simbra, a doctor and a medical reporter for KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, said in an e-mail interview that constraints of the broadcast business can make it hard to put stories in context.

"Time limits, 75 seconds, can hinder how much you're able to explain," Simbra said. "Sometimes adding context lessens the hype, which disappoints our managers and promotions staff."

Pribble said he was more alarmed by the errors he found in broadcasts, even though there were only a small number.

Several stations aired a story about the possible use of lemon juice as an effective contraceptive or even in preventing transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The study was done only in vitro, meaning it was tested in a lab but never on a person. But nearly all reports failed to mention that the idea was never tested on humans.

"With low health-literacy levels in the country, somebody is going to take that information and possibly be harmed by it," Pribble said.

Both Pribble and Goldstein said they don't place the blame solely on reporters. Pribble said health care professionals should learn more about journalism so the most important stories can be put in the best form for reporters to use, such as in press releases that would help them report the stories more accurately.

Simbra agreed. "Medicine tends to be very slow, methodical, and it doesn't do a very good job of explaining that this is the nature of science," she said.

The study appears in the March issue of the American Journal of Managed Care. The paper is available online at www.ajmc.com.