The portrayal of Lyme Disease by a Public Service Broadcaster

ABSTRACT

Background

The tick-borne condition Lyme borreliosis, commonly known as Lyme Disease, is an emerging problem in the U.K. Thus media coverage highlighting clinical features and measures to prevent tick bites is welcome. How well does the news media provide this information? Here, reports from the British Public Service Broadcaster, the BBC, were examined.

Methods

BBC coverage of Lyme Disease was classed depending on media type as ‘television’, ‘radio’ or ‘web page’. Keywords related to symptoms and prevention techniques were recorded. Images of ticks or the characteristic EM rashes were also noted.

Results

More reports occurred in the spring and summer months than autumn and winter (Q2, 31.7%: Q3, 29.1%). Early diagnostic features such as a ‘rash’ (53.3%) and reference to tick bites (68.9%) were frequently mentioned. Other symptoms were well covered; including fever or ‘flu-like’ symptoms (43.6%), malaise (35.9%) and joint pain (43.6%). Less often mentioned were focal symptoms; including arthritis (8.7%) or facial palsy (6.7%). Prevention techniques were mentioned in 32% of all media reports, with tick removal (26.2%) and body checking (20.3%) being most often mentioned. Tick images were frequently provided (40.7%), but those of EM rashes less often (16.5%).

Conclusion

Overall, coverage of early symptoms was high. However, symptoms indicative of later infection were less well covered. Increased use of EM images, and more appropriate tick images, could aid Lyme Disease identification amongst the general public.

KEYWORDS:

• Lyme borreliosis
• tick-borne disease
• communications media
• media coverage
• public service broadcasting
• disease prevention
• Internet
• health communication

Disclosure statement

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

Ethical approval

Ethical approval was not sought. This was a literature based study, with no study participants. The study used publicly available information from an online source. Information relating to individuals was not recorded or used. Information that could be used to identify individuals was not used.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mark David Walker

Mark David Walker has worked on field research projects studying Lyme disease transmission by ticks on wild rodents. He completed his doctoral research at Sheffield Hallam University, U.K., studying the effect louse-fly parasites have on their Common Swift Apus apus hosts. He has recently conducted research on tick-borne encephalitis. He has a strong interest in parasite life histories and parasitic disease.