Accuracy and Stigmatizing Language Revealed in Study of Media Coverage of Neurology Issues

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Twenty percent of newspaper stories researched about coverage of neurological diseases carried inaccuracies, overstated symptoms or stigmatizing terms, according to a joint study involving Mayo Clinic neurologists, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and graduate students from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University (ASU).

Among the study participants were Joseph I. Sirven, M.D., and Joseph F. Drazkowski, M.D., neurologists at Mayo Clinic. Their goal was to determine how well medical risks and treatment advances of neurological conditions are conveyed in U.S. newspaper articles. Their findings reveal that in general, coverage of the conditions did not always correlate with prevalence of the conditions - and that more collaboration is needed between journalists and neurologists to better educate consumers.

The study group researched The New York Times and eight regional newspapers with a circulation of at least 200,000 after entering 11 common medical keywords on neurology issues. After studying the 1,201 stories (with a potential reach of 6 million readers) that were found, they concluded that the most prevalent neurological conditions, such as migraine and head trauma, were among the least covered. Stories garnering the most coverage were conditions such as Alzheimer's disease and other dementias - with Parkinson's disease close behind.

Errors found involved overstating the symptoms of Parkinson's or communicating the effectiveness of therapies only tried in animals.

Stories on migraine headaches contained the most stigma bias, followed by Parkinson's, brain trauma and ALS. The source of stigmatizing language was first via the reporter (40 percent), followed by parents (15 percent), friends (15 percent), the patient (13 percent) and physicians (12 percent).

Diseases involving celebrities drove 14 percent of the stories, of which one-third dealt with the late Pope John Paul II's struggle with Parkinson's.

The study notes that a recent survey found that mass media are the second leading source of public information on neurology issues, with newspapers coming in number one - often spawning broadcast coverage as well.

Mayo Clinic is a private group practice of medicine dedicated to providing diagnosis and treatment of patient illnesses through a systematic focus on individual patient needs. As a leading academic medical center in the Southwest, Mayo Clinic focuses on providing specialty and surgical care in more than 65 disciplines at its outpatient facility in north Scottsdale and at Mayo Clinic Hospital. The 208-licensed bed hospital is located at 56th Street and Mayo Boulevard (north of Bell Road) in northeast Phoenix, and provides inpatient care to support the medical and surgical specialties of the clinic, which is located at 134th Street and Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale.

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