Causal overstatements reduced in press releases following academic study of health news

Wellcome Open Research

article

Luke Bratton¹  Rachel C. Adams²  Aimée Challenger¹  Jacky Boivin¹  Lewis Bott¹  Christopher D. Chambers²  Petroc Sumner¹ 

[1] School of Psychology, Cardiff University;Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre ,(CUBRIC), School of Psychology, Cardiff University

关键词: science news;    hype;    exaggeration;    science communication;   

DOI  :  10.12688/wellcomeopenres.15647.2

学科分类：内科医学

来源: Wellcome

【 摘 要 】

Background: Exaggerations in health news were previously found to strongly associate with similar exaggerations in press releases. Moreover such exaggerations did not appear to attract more news. Here we assess whether press release practice changed after these reported findings; simply drawing attention to the issue may be insufficient for practical change, given the challenges of media environments.Methods: We assessed whether rates of causal over-statement in press releases based on correlational data were lower following a widely publicised paper on the topic, compared to an equivalent baseline period in the preceding year.Results: We found that over-statements in press releases were 28% (95% confidence interval = 16% to 45%) in 2014 and 13% (95% confidence interval = 6% to 25%) in 2015. A corresponding numerical reduction in exaggerations in news was not significant. The association between over-statements in news and press releases remained strong.Conclusions: Press release over-statements were less frequent following publication of Sumner et al. (2014). However, this is correlational evidence and the reduction may be due to other factors or natural fluctuations.

【 授权许可】

CC BY