• Health Res Policy Syst · Nov 2015

    Print media coverage of primary healthcare and related research evidence in South Africa.

    • Olagoke Akintola, John N Lavis, and Ryan Hoskins.
    • School of Applied Human Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Mazisi Kunene Road, Glenwood, Durban, 4041, South Africa. akintolao@ukzn.ac.za.
    • Health Res Policy Syst. 2015 Nov 12; 13: 68.

    BackgroundThe news media is located at the nexus of the public and policy agendas and provides a window into issues concerning the public. Therefore, it could be a powerful tool for advocating for citizens' health and could help promote evidence-based primary health systems responsive to the needs of citizens. However, research on the coverage of primary healthcare and related research evidence in the South African print media is virtually non-existent.MethodsWe examined 2,077 news stories that covered primary healthcare from 25 South African newspapers retrieved from the Lexis-Nexis online archive over a 16-year period (1997-2012). We analysed basic characteristics and conducted a content analysis of the news stories.ResultsOf the 2,077 news stories that mentioned primary healthcare, this was the main focus in 8.3% (n = 173). Of these, 45.7% discussed issues relating to clinics, whereas issues relating to community health workers and nurses were covered by 42.8% and 34.1% of news stories, respectively. The number of news stories discussing infectious diseases (55.5%) was more than twice the number discussing non-communicable diseases (21.4%). HIV/AIDS/TB illness- and service-related issues were covered by 54.3% of news stories and social determinants of health by 22%. Issues relating to how healthcare is organised to deliver services to the people received substantial coverage in the print media, with 72.8% discussing delivery arrangements, 72.3% governance arrangements, and 55% financial arrangements. A small fraction of news stories (7.5%) discussed research studies but none discussed a systematic review.ConclusionOur study underscores the potential role of media analyses in illuminating patterns in print media coverage of health issues. It also shows that an understanding of coverage of health research evidence could help spur efforts to support the climate for evidence-informed health policymaking. Researchers in low- and middle-income countries need to be more proactive in making use of media analyses to help illuminate health related issues that require the attention of health policymakers, stakeholders and reporters, and to identify potential areas of research.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…