School of Public Health, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
School of Public Health, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia; School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia.
Public Health. 2022 Sep;210:8-15. doi: 10.1016/j.puhe.2022.06.016. Epub 2022 Jul 18.
Unhealthy diets are a leading risk factor for the global burden of disease. Research suggests that comprehensive, population-level solutions are required to attenuate this problem, though such policies have not been adopted. Increased media attention may lead to government-led policy action through issue definition and agenda setting. The aim of this study was to analyse which nutrition policy issues are covered in print media, and whether media attention correlated with relevant policy actions in Australia.
STUDY DESIGN/METHODS: A content analysis was conducted on newspaper articles published between 1999 and 2019 from 11 major Australian metropolitan newspapers.
Of the policy issues identified, few received meaningful media attention. Of those with peaks in media attention, only fortification and labelling issues coincided with government-led policy actions, while regulating junk-food advertising to children, sugar-sweetened beverage taxation, and the formulation of a National Nutrition Policy did not result in policy outcomes.
Given the limited coverage of nutrition policy issues, the relationship between media attention and policy actions for the captured issues may not be determinable. In addition, factors including social, political, and historical contexts may be stronger influences on policymaking than media attention. Although this study did not demonstrate a relationship between media attention and policy action because of low coverage of nutrition issues, it did identify the media are generally reporting nutrition policy issues with a positive public health framing. Promoting favourable coverage of nutrition policy issues is still an important tool for advocacy globally. Moving forward, increasing the volume of coverage of nutrition issues should be an advocacy priority.
不健康的饮食是全球疾病负担的一个主要风险因素。研究表明，需要采取全面的、针对整个人群的解决方案来缓解这个问题，但这些政策尚未被采纳。媒体关注度的增加可能会通过问题定义和议程设置导致政府主导的政策行动。本研究旨在分析印刷媒体中涵盖了哪些营养政策问题，以及媒体关注度是否与澳大利亚相关政策行动相关。
研究设计/方法：对 1999 年至 2019 年间 11 家澳大利亚主要都市报纸上发表的报纸文章进行了内容分析。
在所确定的政策问题中，很少有问题得到了媒体的关注。在媒体关注度较高的问题中，只有强化和标签问题与政府主导的政策行动相一致，而对儿童垃圾食品广告、含糖饮料征税以及制定国家营养政策的监管并没有导致政策结果。
鉴于营养政策问题的报道有限，媒体关注度与所捕获问题的政策行动之间的关系可能无法确定。此外，社会、政治和历史背景等因素可能对决策制定的影响比媒体关注度更大。尽管本研究由于营养问题的报道覆盖率低，没有证明媒体关注度与政策行动之间的关系，但它确实表明媒体通常以积极的公共卫生框架报道营养政策问题。促进对营养政策问题的有利报道仍然是全球宣传的重要工具。展望未来，增加营养问题的报道量应该成为宣传的优先事项。
