Voss Melinda
Association of Health Care Journalists, USA.
Am J Public Health. 2002 Jul;92(7):1158-60. doi: 10.2105/ajph.92.7.1158.
Newspapers play a key role in disseminating information and shaping perceptions about health, research, and policies. Inadequate or misleading reporting constitutes a public health threat that can jeopardize individual health and lead to harmful health policies.
Surveys were mailed to 165 reporters at 122 newspapers in 5 Midwest states. The association of training, newspaper size, and experience with reporter's self-perceived reporting ability was assessed.
The response rate was 69.6% (115/165). Between 66% and 85% of the reporters assessed 4 tasks vital to sound health reporting as "sometimes difficult" to "nearly always difficult." No significant differences in perceived ability were found by training or newspaper size. Respondents with less experience reported higher perceived ability.
These findings show that reporters may have difficulty understanding complex health issues and interpreting statistics because they are inadequately trained.
报纸在传播信息以及塑造有关健康、研究和政策的观念方面发挥着关键作用。报道不足或具有误导性构成了一种公共卫生威胁，可能危及个人健康并导致有害的卫生政策。
向中西部5个州122家报纸的165名记者邮寄了调查问卷。评估了培训、报纸规模和经验与记者自我感知的报道能力之间的关联。
回复率为69.6%（115/165）。66%至85%的记者将4项对合理的健康报道至关重要的任务评定为“有时困难”至“几乎总是困难”。在培训或报纸规模方面，未发现感知能力存在显著差异。经验较少的受访者报告的感知能力较高。
这些发现表明，记者可能难以理解复杂的健康问题和解读统计数据，因为他们未得到充分培训。
