3 FIXES FOR A MEDIA DIET OF QUESTIONABLE SCIENCE
Will
leafy green vegetables prevent dementia? Or does living near heavy
traffic cause it? ConscienHealth’s Ted Kyle summarises John Ioannidis’
JAMA opinion piece describing our woeful current media diet of
questionable science and minor issues, while serious and substantial
health concerns get little attention.
1. FOCUS ON BIGGER ISSUES
Scientific articles are
getting more attention these days in the media. Ioannidis looked at the
top 100 papers ranked by how much media attention they received.
Altimetric scores were the measure. He found roughly half of the stories
dealt with health and lifestyle. But the focus was mostly on trivial
issues like coffee’s effect on lifespan. Even if it’s real, it’s not
really big. Pointless arguments about fats versus carbs are big too.
Ioannidis
says the answer is obvious. Focus on bigger issues, like tobacco and
obesity. Those subjects received relatively little attention, he said.
He did find one bright spot, though. Exercise is both important for
health and amply covered in the media.
2. FOCUS ON CLEAR RESULTS
Because
scientific controversies get so much attention, the public gets many
conflicting messages. For example, Ioannidis pointed to recent
controversial papers regarding red meat. Media attention, as measured by
Altimetric, went sky high on these studies.
This kind
of food fight is unhelpful, he writes: “Some expert advocates in these
fields have a large number of followers in social media that broadcast
their beliefs and attack opponents as being unethical, conflicted
individuals. Perhaps this behavior is based on good intentions (e.g., to
save lives), but heated advocacy is unsuitable for thoughtful,
disinterested scientific exchange. It seems more akin to religious
dedication to intolerant sects. Promoting such conflicts in the media
offers little public benefit.”
3. STOP HYPING OBSERVATIONAL FINDINGS
Most
of the high-scoring health and lifestyle articles were based on
observational research. What’s more, those observational studies attract
extreme news coverage. More so than randomized, controlled studies with
null results. In other words, once a supposition arises from a weak
observational study, even a well-controlled study might not kill it.
Ioannidis
says that observational research should be rare in high-impact journals
(like JAMA). Instead, they should appear mostly in journals for
specialized audiences, with appropriate caveats. Press releases for such
studies should fade away.
Sensation has always sold
newspapers. And today, it provides great clickbait. But serious health
journalists can do better. They would do well to pay attention to
Ioannidis.
Read more:
- ConscienHealth News
- Click here for the Ioannidis viewpoint in JAMA.
