Media coverage of medical journals: do the best articles make the news?

<h4>Background</h4>News coverage of medical research is followed closely by many Americans and affects the practice of medicine and influence of scientific research. Prior work has examined the quality of media coverage, but no investigation has characterized the choice of stories covere...

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Autores principales:	Senthil Selvaraj, Durga S Borkar, Vinay Prasad
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2014
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/7005f247abce4a718fd59b1e8151df6d
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:7005f247abce4a718fd59b1e8151df6d2021-11-18T08:37:28ZMedia coverage of medical journals: do the best articles make the news?1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0085355https://doaj.org/article/7005f247abce4a718fd59b1e8151df6d2014-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/24465543/pdf/?tool=EBIhttps://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203<h4>Background</h4>News coverage of medical research is followed closely by many Americans and affects the practice of medicine and influence of scientific research. Prior work has examined the quality of media coverage, but no investigation has characterized the choice of stories covered in a controlled manner. We examined whether the media systematically covers stories of weaker study design.<h4>Methods</h4>We compared study characteristics of 75 clinically-oriented journal articles that received coverage in the top five newspapers by circulation against 75 clinically-oriented journal articles that appeared in the top five medical journals by impact factor over a similar timespan. Subgroup analysis was performed to determine whether differences between investigations from both sources varied by study type (randomized controlled trial [RCT] or observational study).<h4>Results</h4>Investigations receiving coverage from newspapers were less likely to be RCTs (17% vs. 35%, p = 0.016) and more likely to be observational studies (75% vs. 47%, p<0.001). No difference was observed in number of people studied (median: 1034 vs. 1901, p = 0.14) or length of follow-up (median: 1.80 vs. 1.00 years, p = 0.22). In subgroup analysis, observational studies from the media used smaller sample sizes (median: 1984 vs. 21136, p = 0.029) and were more likely to be cross-sectional (71% vs. 31%, p<0.001), while no differences were observed for RCTs.<h4>Conclusions</h4>Newspapers were more likely to cover observational studies and less likely to cover RCTs than high impact journals. Additionally, when the media does cover observational studies, they select articles of inferior quality. Newspapers preferentially cover medical research with weaker methodology.Senthil SelvarajDurga S BorkarVinay PrasadPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 9, Iss 1, p e85355 (2014)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Senthil Selvaraj Durga S Borkar Vinay Prasad Media coverage of medical journals: do the best articles make the news?
description	<h4>Background</h4>News coverage of medical research is followed closely by many Americans and affects the practice of medicine and influence of scientific research. Prior work has examined the quality of media coverage, but no investigation has characterized the choice of stories covered in a controlled manner. We examined whether the media systematically covers stories of weaker study design.<h4>Methods</h4>We compared study characteristics of 75 clinically-oriented journal articles that received coverage in the top five newspapers by circulation against 75 clinically-oriented journal articles that appeared in the top five medical journals by impact factor over a similar timespan. Subgroup analysis was performed to determine whether differences between investigations from both sources varied by study type (randomized controlled trial [RCT] or observational study).<h4>Results</h4>Investigations receiving coverage from newspapers were less likely to be RCTs (17% vs. 35%, p = 0.016) and more likely to be observational studies (75% vs. 47%, p<0.001). No difference was observed in number of people studied (median: 1034 vs. 1901, p = 0.14) or length of follow-up (median: 1.80 vs. 1.00 years, p = 0.22). In subgroup analysis, observational studies from the media used smaller sample sizes (median: 1984 vs. 21136, p = 0.029) and were more likely to be cross-sectional (71% vs. 31%, p<0.001), while no differences were observed for RCTs.<h4>Conclusions</h4>Newspapers were more likely to cover observational studies and less likely to cover RCTs than high impact journals. Additionally, when the media does cover observational studies, they select articles of inferior quality. Newspapers preferentially cover medical research with weaker methodology.
format	article
author	Senthil Selvaraj Durga S Borkar Vinay Prasad
author_facet	Senthil Selvaraj Durga S Borkar Vinay Prasad
author_sort	Senthil Selvaraj
title	Media coverage of medical journals: do the best articles make the news?
title_short	Media coverage of medical journals: do the best articles make the news?
title_full	Media coverage of medical journals: do the best articles make the news?
title_fullStr	Media coverage of medical journals: do the best articles make the news?
title_full_unstemmed	Media coverage of medical journals: do the best articles make the news?
title_sort	media coverage of medical journals: do the best articles make the news?
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2014
url	https://doaj.org/article/7005f247abce4a718fd59b1e8151df6d
work_keys_str_mv	AT senthilselvaraj mediacoverageofmedicaljournalsdothebestarticlesmakethenews AT durgasborkar mediacoverageofmedicaljournalsdothebestarticlesmakethenews AT vinayprasad mediacoverageofmedicaljournalsdothebestarticlesmakethenews
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Media coverage of medical journals: do the best articles make the news?

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