Does lower use of academic affiliation by university faculty in top U.S. newspapers contribute to misinformation about abortion?

ABSTRACT

Background

University faculty are considered trusted sources of information to disseminate accurate information to the public that abortion is a common, safe and necessary medical health care service. However, misinformation persists about abortion’s alleged dangers, commonality, and medical necessity.

Methods

Systematic review of popular media articles related to abortion, gun control (an equally controversial topic), and cigarette use (a more neutral topic) published in top U.S. newspapers between January 2015 and July 2020 using bivariate analysis and logistic regression to compare disclosure of university affiliation among experts in each topic area.

Results

We included 41 abortion, 102 gun control, and 130 smoking articles, which consisted of 304 distinct media mentions of university-affiliated faculty. Articles with smoking and gun control faculty experts had statistically more affiliations mentioned (90%, n = 195 and 88%, n = 159, respectively) than abortion faculty experts (77%, n = 54) (p = 0.02). The probability of faculty disclosing university affiliation was similar between smoking and gun control (p = 0.73), but between smoking and abortion was significantly less (Ave Marginal Effects – 0.13, p = 0.02).

Conclusions

Fewer faculty members disclose their university affiliation in top U.S. newspapers when discussing abortion. Lack of academic disclosure may paradoxically make these faculty appear less ‘legitimate.’ This leads to misinformation, branding abortion as a ‘choice,’ suggesting it is an unessential medical service. With the recent U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and subsequent banning of abortion in many U.S. states, faculty will probably be even less likely to disclose their university affiliation in the media than in the past.

KEYWORDS:

• Induced abortion
• communication
• faculty
• academic medical centers
• information science
• illegitimacy
• print media
• affiliation

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Teresa Jewell and Jessica Albano for their guidance on our search approach. We also acknowledge Malaika Schwartz, MPH, for her assistance with the analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

EMG and ARL conceived the project idea. EMG, ARL, JDW defined the search terms and oversaw the entire project. MM performed the newspaper search and wrote the first draft of the paper. EKT performed the data analysis.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant 2027792 to JDW. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of NSF.