Mass media coverage, including television, radio, newspapers, billboards and booklets about an epidemic can be a powerful tool to help slow the spread of the disease, a new study has found.
Researchers from from Shaanxi Normal University in China and York University in Canada suggest that to maximise this effect, media reports should focus on changing people's behaviour in an epidemic.
During a disease outbreak, like the A/H1N1 influenza pandemic of 2009, news reports kept people updated on the disease - how it is spreading and how many people are affected. However, scientists have also shown that mass media coverage can have an effect on people's behaviour.
Researchers studied the effect of mass media coverage on the H1N1 epidemic in the city of Xian in China. They compared the number of hospital visits with the number and duration of news reports about the epidemic.
Their results show that more news reports resulted in fewer hospital visits and vice versa. This shows that media coverage is a powerful tool to help halt the spread of disease during an epidemic, researchers said.
Researchers collected media coverage that contained the key word 'A/H1N1' in the title from eight major news websites between 3 September and 16 November 2009.
They also obtained the number of newly reported cases from the province's dedicated influenza hospital.
They found that the average number of daily news items was linked to the number of newly reported cases, with a time lag of about four days.
At some stages of the epidemic the number of reported cases had an effect on news coverage, while at others the news coverage had an effect on the number of cases.
They then developed a mathematical model to help them study the dynamics of the media coverage - news items, coverage duration and the response of media to the number of cases.
The model confirmed that when there is an increase in news items, there is a decrease in newly reported cases. This is likely due to a change in people's behaviour - they avoid contact with others, so fewer people are infected.
The model also showed that the duration of coverage matters. When the coverage lasts longer, there are more news items and a bigger impact on the public awareness of the epidemic, resulting in further behaviour changes and fewer new infections.
"In order to help reduce the accumulated number of new notifications, the media should have been more persistent in their reporting of number of infections, hospitalisations and deaths," said Sanyi Tang from Shaanxi Normal University.
"In addition, news reports needed to be timely and continue for longer periods," Tang said.
The findings were published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology.
