One of the sources of academic disdain for popular health media is its reputation for sensationalism and exaggeration. 'This common household item is definitely killing you, says a new study'-when the actual study only posited that a 'possible association may potentially exist' between, say, exposure to antibacterial soap and liver disease in a handful of mice who were exposed to more antibacterial soap than any human could ever dream of using, even if they washed their hands literally every time they went to the bathroom.
Petroc Sumner, a professor of psychology at Cardiff University in Wales, has been trying to pinpoint exactly where exaggeration in science reporting comes from. At what level, in the ladder from lab data to news headline, are most inaccuracies introduced?
Yesterday Sumner and colleagues published some important research in the journal that found that a majority of exaggeration in health stories was traced not to the news outlet, but to the press release-the statement issued by the university's publicity department.
'The framing of health related information in the national and international media has complex and potentially powerful impacts on healthcare utilization and other health related behavior,' Sumner and colleagues write. 'Although it is common to blame media outlets and their journalists for news perceived as exaggerated, sensationalized, or alarmist, most of the inflation detected in our study did not occur de novo in the media but was already present in the text of the press releases.'
The goal of a press release around a scientific study is to draw attention from the media, and that attention is supposed to be good for the university, and for the scientists who did the work. Ideally the endpoint of that press release would be the simple spread of seeds of knowledge and wisdom; but it's about attention and prestige and, thereby, money. Major universities employ publicists who work full time to make scientific studies sound engaging and amazing. Those publicists email the press releases to people like me, asking me to cover the story because 'my readers' will 'love it.' And I want to write about health research and help people experience 'love' for things. I do!
Across 668 news stories about health science, the Cardiff researchers compared the original academic papers to their news reports. They counted exaggeration and distortion as any instance of implying causation when there was only correlation, implying meaning to humans when they study was only in animals, or giving direct advice about health behavior that was not present in the study. They found evidence of exaggeration in 58 to 86 percent of stories when the press release contained similar exaggeration. When the press release was staid and made no such errors, the rates of exaggeration in the news stories dropped to between 10 and 18 percent.
Even the degree of exaggeration between press releases and news stories was broadly similar.
Sumner and colleagues say they would not shift liability to press officers, but rather to academics. 'Most press releases issued by universities are drafted in dialogue between scientists and press officers and are not released without the approval of scientists,' the researchers write, 'and thus most of the responsibility for exaggeration must lie with the scientific authors.'
In an accompanying editorial in the journal, Ben Goldacre, author of the book Bad Science, noted that bad news tends to generate more coverage than good, and that less rigorous observational studies tend to generate more coverage than robust clinical trials, probably due to the applicability of the subject matter to lay readers.
Best practice guidelines already exist for academics, journals and institutional press officers, he notes, 'but these are routinely ignored.' So Goldacre corroborates Sumner's argument for accountability: that academics should be held responsible for what's said in the universities' press releases that publicize said academics' research. The press releases will often be read much more widely than the actual journal article, yet many academics take little to no interest in them. Instead, writing an accurate press release should be considered part of the scientific publication process.
Entities 0 Name: Sumner Count: 4 1 Name: Cardiff Count: 1 2 Name: Wales Count: 1 3 Name: Cardiff University Count: 1 4 Name: Ben Goldacre Count: 1 5 Name: Petroc Sumner Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/12mGqDe Title: Health News Review Returns With New Funding, Big Plans Description: Health news offers some of the most hyped headlines out there, screaming that coffee, chocolate or red wine will save you one day and kill you the next. Eggs are great. No, eggs are bad. Get your mammograms and prostate cancer screenings. Oh wait - maybe don't... It can be frustrating [...]
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