Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
Department of Communication, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA; Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
Prev Med. 2022 May;158:107015. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2022.107015. Epub 2022 Mar 3.
The objective of this study was to examine the frequency and content of messages related to pharmacological and evidence-based, non-pharmaceutical treatments in direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) for prescription drugs treating four chronic diseases in the United States. We used content coding to identify theory-informed categories of messages appearing in a large sample of heart disease, diabetes, depression, and osteoarthritis advertisements, appearing on national and local television between 2003 and 2016 (N = 11,347,070). The data were originally accessed in 2019 and analyzed in 2020-2021. The central message in all pharmaceutical DTCA was drug efficacy. Advertisements for diabetes and heart disease, but not depression or osteoarthritis, contained general (not central) messages about diet and exercise. Advertisements for heart disease primarily portrayed diet and exercise as insufficient for controlling the target health condition. No advertisements in our sample portrayed changes in diet or physical activity as an alternative to drugs. Pharmaceutical DTCA across health conditions employ similar strategies to promote use of the advertised drug but vary widely in whether and how they describe non-pharmaceutical treatments that complement or serve as alternatives to medications. Regulators should consider the potential spillover effects of non-pharmaceutical messages in pharmaceutical DTCA when considering future regulatory endeavors.
本研究旨在考察美国四种慢性病处方药的直接面向消费者广告（DTCA）中与药理学和基于证据的非药物治疗相关的信息的频率和内容。我们使用内容编码来识别出现在心脏病、糖尿病、抑郁症和骨关节炎广告中的、基于理论的信息类别，这些广告出现在 2003 年至 2016 年期间的国家和地方电视台上（N=11,347,070）。这些数据最初是在 2019 年获取的，并在 2020 年至 2021 年进行了分析。所有药物 DTCA 的核心信息都是药物疗效。糖尿病和心脏病的广告，但不是抑郁症或骨关节炎的广告，包含了关于饮食和运动的一般（非核心）信息。心脏病广告主要将饮食和运动描绘为控制目标健康状况的不足。我们的样本中没有广告将饮食或身体活动的改变描绘为替代药物的方法。不同健康状况的药物 DTCA 采用类似的策略来促进所宣传药物的使用，但在描述补充或替代药物的非药物治疗方面存在很大差异。监管机构在考虑未来的监管工作时，应考虑药物 DTCA 中的非药物信息的潜在溢出效应。
