Testing the Effect of Press Guides on Health Journalists

The news media has a powerful influence on public perceptions about health and health care; and much of what people -- including many physicians -- know and believe about medicine comes from the print and broadcast media. Several studies, however, have raised questions about how well the press covers medical issues, pointing out errors and omissions in coverage and misleading presentations of statistics. The goal is to help train journalists to better understand and cover medical research, and to help improve communication between journalists and medical journals.

Journalists traditionally write newspaper articles about medical research using information from press releases and the medical journal article's abstract or full text. The objective is to test whether the addition of a 'press guide' (a one-page summary of the study findings) in addition to these other materials improves comprehension of facts about the study article and the overall judgment of the newsworthiness of the study.