After nearly every election, there's discussion and debate about what role, if any, the news media played in influencing the outcome. This year is likely to be no different.
But what kind of influence might the media have on our perceptions of disease? Here's a little test. Consider the following description of something we'll call Condition X:
Condition X is transmitted by a bite from an infected mosquito. Eighty percent of people who get infected will not show any symptoms. Symptoms can include headaches, nausea, vomiting, skin rash, high fever, neck stiffness, tremors, muscle weakness, vision loss, and paralysis.
On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being most severe), rate the severity of Condition X.
Now, what if I tell you that Condition X is actually West Nile virus? Would that change your answer?
It's a question that researchers at McMaster University in Canada put to the test. In an ingenious study published in the current issue of the journal PLoS ONE, they asked subjects about 10 infectious conditions. Five of them -- anthrax, avian (bird) flu, Lyme disease, SARS, and West Nile virus -- have received extensive media coverage, while the other five have not.
When subjects were given the names of the conditions, they rated the widely reported ones to be more serious than the others. But when the labels were removed and only descriptions were provided, they judged the conditions with low media exposure to be more severe.
So what does this tell us? Our perceptions about what threatens our health are shaped --
and often skewed -- by the news media, which tend to emphasize risks that are novel and dramatic. The result is that we may end up fixating on small (often tiny) risks -- anthrax, plastic bottles, shark attacks -- rather than things that really matter, such as smoking, lack of exercise, and a poor diet.
While none of us can entirely escape the media's influence, we can learn to think more critically about what they tell us. To that end, an excellent site called Health News Review rates medical reports for accuracy, balance, and completeness. And if you'd like a reality check on your own risk for major conditions such as heart disease, cancer and stroke, here's an excellent tool developed at Harvard. Both can help you get past the hype and focus on what's really important for your own health.
