The Minimization of Public Health Risks in Newspapers after Hurricane Katrina

Abstract

During natural disasters, mass media facilitate the timely provision of accurate information about health risks to the public. This study informs our understanding of such public health discourse, utilizing a content-analysis of 235 newspaper articles in four major metropolitan newspapers published in the five weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in August 2005. These data reveal that a small and diminishing number of articles included public health information over time, detailed the hurricane impact on affected communities, and used reliable health sources. The implications for future research from a public health and media relations perspective are discussed.

Keywords:

• Content Analysis
• Hurricane Katrina
• Newspapers
• Risk Communication

The authors thank Joselyn Howell, Amy George Rush, and Shana Albright for their valuable research assistance.

Notes

Stories where journalists primarily focused on Hurricanes Katrina or Rita were defined as relevant, although the Hurricane Katrina coverage was the focus of this study. Consistent with Rodgers and Thorson (2001, p. 173), all “teasers, briefs, editorials, features, breaking news stories, and news reports” about Hurricane Katrina or Rita were included in the sample. Assuming the inverted pyramid style of reporting, this search was intended to recall a significant majority of relevant stories.

Additionally, the team consulted with researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health conducting survey research in the field for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on hurricane-affected individuals about Katrina health and general welfare topics. For the health effects of Katrina and the description of the impact of Katrina on the community, items were constructed to reflect similar survey items used by Harvard researchers to examine agenda-setting effects.

In the initial round of coding, an “other” category was utilized to help refine the source category variable.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elisia L. Cohen

Elisia L. Cohen (PhD, University of Southern California, 2003) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY.

Santosh Vijaykumar

Santosh Vijaykumar (MA, University of Missouri, 2005) is a Presidential graduate research assistant in health communication at the Saint Louis University School of Public Health, Saint Louis, MO.

Ricardo Wray

Ricardo Wray (PhD, University of Pennsylvania, 2000) is an assistant professor of community health in the School of Public Health at Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO.

Ajlina Karamehic-Muratovic

Ajlina Karamehic-Muratovic (PhD, University of Kentucky, 2003) is a research assistant professor at the Missouri Institute of Mental Health, University of Missouri, St. Louis, MO.