The Effect of Newspaper Coverage of Influenza on the Rate of Physician Visits for Influenza 2002–2008

Abstract

The effect that newspapers had on patients visiting physicians for influenza was examined for 2002 to 2008. The basis for this investigation rests on theories of media effects drawn from agenda setting, media hype, and the Social Amplification of Risk Framework. It was hypothesized that controlling for the rate of influenza, a positive relationship exists in which increases and decreases of newspaper attention to influenza precede increases and decreases in the percentage of patients visiting physicians for flu symptoms. The percentage of visits and the percentage of positive flu tests are taken from the Centers for Disease Control's flu report. Media attention was located through the Lexis/Nexis database as words per week in stories having flu in the headline in 32 newspapers. Time series analysis shows that controlling for autoregressive and seasonal effects, and the actual rate of disease present, news attention in the previous week accounts for a statistically significant portion of the increase and decrease in the number of individuals who go to their physician reporting influenza-like symptoms. Reverse causality was examined. It was shown that controlling for autoregressive and seasonal effects, patient visits did not predict news coverage, whereas the rate of the flu in the previous 3 weeks did.

Notes

^a N = 298.

^b N = 31.

*p < .05. **p < .01.

*p < .05. ***p < .001.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Craig W. Trumbo

Craig W. Trumbo (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1998) is a Professor in the Department of Journalism and Technical Communication at Colorado State University. His research addresses a range of interests involving health, risk, and the environment.