Publicity and the Public Health: The Elimination of IUD-Related Abortion Deaths

Abstract

Widespread publicity in the mass media about the dangers of leaving an IUD in place in a pregnant uterus was apparently more effective than traditional scientific publication and drug package inserts in getting doctors to remove devices from pregnant patients. This suggests that such publicity could be effective in improving clinical practice and the public health in other instances, such as getting doctors to prescribe and women to request birth control pills with lower doses of estrogen, and persuading women to obtain early rather than the riskier midtrimester abortions.

A Content Analysis of News Coverage of Skin Cancer Prevention and Detection,1979 to 2003

“…34 In sum, evidence is accumulating that news media messages, including celebrity experiences with disease and more general disease coverage, affect participation in prevention and detection behaviors. 24,26,35,36 The objectives of our study were to conduct a formative descriptive analysis of skin cancer news coverage and to evaluate the context within which primary and secondary skin cancer prevention was discussed. One important contextual factor was how risk was communicated.…”

Articles Media and Marijuana: A Longitudinal Analysis of News Media Effects on Adolescents' Marijuana Use and Related Outcomes, 1977-1999

“…Trend analyses have provided visually compelling evidence of concomitant variation between news coverage and a variety of health behaviors including the following: deaths related to spontaneous abortions associated with intra-uterine devices (Cates, Grimes, Ory, & Tyler, 1977); discontinuance of use of intra-uterine devices and oral contraceptives (Jones, Beniger, & Westoff, 1980); discontinuance of aspirin and other salycilates in children (Soumerai, Ross-Degnan, & Kahn, 1992); and smoking cessation and initiation (Pierce & Gilpin, 2001). However, this type of research has not provided convincing statistical support for these associations, because statistical analyses have not been presented (Pierce & Gilpin, 2001;Soumerai et al, 1992;Cates et al, 1977), the temporal precedence of media coverage was not established, or potential third variable confounders were not considered (Jones et al, Time-series regression, ARIMA modeling, and non-linear techniques have been used to study news effects on a variety of health-related outcomes. Studies of media effects on correlates of health behaviors include funding for AIDS research (Rogers et al, 1991), public opinion regarding AIDS (Fan, 1996a;Rogers et al, 1991) and illegal drugs (Fan, 1996b;Gonzenbach, 1996), and beliefs about AIDS transmission (Hertog & Fan, 1995).…”

“…Others studies have moved into the realm of health behavior and health outcomes, testing effects on breast cancer incidence (Corbett & Mori, 1999), drunk driving (Yanovitzky & Bennett, 1999), mammography utilization (Yanovitzky & Blitz, 2000;Southwell, Hornik, Fan, Yanovitzky, & Lazili, 2000), cocaine use (Fan & Holway, 1994), and binge drinking (Yanovitzky & Stryker, 2001). Slowly, evidence is accumulating that news media messages affect secular trends in health behaviors (Viswanath & Finnegan, 2002;Yanovitzky & Stryker, 2001;Pierce & Gilpin, 2001;Yanovitzky & Blitz, 2000;Southwell et al, 2000;Yanovitzky & Bennett, 1999;Corbett & Mori, 1999;Fan & Holway, 1994;Soumerai et al, 1992;Jones et al, 1980;Cates et al, 1977). Mediating pathways through which behavior change may occur are being explored; e.g., via public beliefs about performing the behavior (Yanovitzky & Stryker, 2001;Fan & Holway, 1994), social norms (Yanovitzky & Stryker, 2001), funding for medical research (Corbett & Mori, 1999;Rogers et al, 1991), and legislation (Yanovitzky & Stryker, 2001;Yanovitzky & Bennett, 1999).…”