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ER Episode Impacts Viewers' Health Knowledge and Behavior |
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From University of Southern California: Researchers found that a storyline on the primetime NBC network drama ER that dealt with teen obesity, hypertension and healthy eating habits had a positive impact on the attitudes and behaviors of viewers, particularly among men. The study, published in the Sept. 14 Journal of Health Communication and now available online, offered researchers a rare opportunity to evaluate the impact of health messages in entertainment, says Thomas W. Valente, Ph.D., associate professor of preventive medicine and member of the Institute for Health Promotion & Disease Prevention Research (IPR) at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. "This study demonstrates the importance of interventions and programs targeted at a population level," says Valente. The impact of the episodes was evaluated using three separate datasets, one of which provided data on a sample of 807 primetime viewers before and after the episodes aired. An independent firm collected surveys from viewers, measuring whether their self-reported behavior and their nutrition attitudes, knowledge and practices were impacted by the storyline. While the overall impact may be relatively small, the study highlights the potential of entertainment television as a medium for health communication, Valente says. It can be particularly helpful since people who are heavy TV watchers are more likely to be at risk for obesity, he notes. Public health experts should also be involved in shaping the health messages that go out to viewers, Valente says. For the ER storyline, writers from the show contacted the Hollywood, Health & Society (HH&S) project at the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center to request information on the prevalence of hypertension and heart disease among overweight teens. Funding for the study came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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