Translating Medical Research into Journalism

Nirav R. Shah, MD

On April 12, NYAM’s Section on Evidence Based Health Care hosted a panel discussion on the challenges associated with translating medical research into language journalists can understand and relay to the reading or viewing audience. The event brought together physicians, a social scientist, and a journalist, all of whom provided important insight into the challenge of providing consumers with the most accurate research and medical information without falling into the trap of sensational journalism or fear-provoking headlines.

Panelists for the event included New York State Commissioner of Health and NYAM Fellow Nirav R. Shah, MD, who gave the opening remarks; Kenneth Prewitt, PhD, Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs, Columbia University; Dara Richardson-Heron, CEO, Susan G. Komen for the Cure New York City Affiliate; Sanford Schwartz, MD, Professor of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, and Member of the United States Preventive Services Task Force; and Anemona Hartocollis, a health journalist from The New York Times.

Dr. Schwartz began the event by giving a summary of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a process created by Congress in 1984 that conducts rigorous reviews of research evidence to create evidence-based recommendations for preventive services that should be provided in the primary care setting, especially around routine mammography screening for women being test for breast cancer – a controversy that set into motion the challenge of communicating science and medical research into language easily understood by the public. 

“The goal was to try and prioritize those things that are most effective for primary care physicians to do in their practice,” Dr. Schwartz, a member of the USPSTF, said. “If we want to communicate with groups, we have to communicate in ways they can understand.”

Dr. Shah then highlighted the challenges of balancing news coverage about health and medicine with the responsibility of using that information to better educate the public. He said the current climate of health news has overwhelmed the public, often with information that is misleading or simply too difficult to grasp.
 “We live in a digital age where the public has access to a wealth of information and health information – not all factual or reliable or consistent,” Dr. Shah said. “Long gone are the days when your family doctor was the chief source of medical information. Today, the public is inundated with information and studies and news that are often not contextualized or adequately explained.”

Dara Richardson Heron, a physician who is also a breast cancer survivor, then spoke at length about the advent of the Internet and how it has impacted the manner in which people access medical information.

“From an advocacy perspective, I want to ask the question whether we think the pendulum has swung a bit too far as it relates to the presentation of medical information, research findings, new scientific evidence, and medical procedures to the public at large?” Dr. Richardson Heron said.

“Decades ago when I was a very young child, I remember distinctly that my grandparents idolized their general practitioner. Dr. Finely was the ‘go-to’ person for all things medical,” she said. “He certainly did not look to the media for any sort of medical information. And although the Internet was not even heard of, my grandparents didn’t need Google because Dr. Finely was their trusted resource, their search engine.”

Dr. Richardson Heron went on to say that, like many other physicians, she possesses the knowledge to critically examine and digest information she sees in the lens of the media each day. She worries that many in the general public, including those who are well educated, do not know or even care about the importance of peer-reviewed scientific research or what a double-blind placebo test is. Such health illiteracy can lead to the misinterpretation of information about new research or treatments.

Anemona Hartocollis, a journalist with several years experience covering health issues for The New York Times said that many journalists, including the 25 or so who cover medical issues for the Times, often go the extra step of scrutinizing medical evidence, while also attempting to put a human face to the body of research or medical evidence. She said that critics and skeptics are invaluable to journalists who attempt to write about such issues.

“My sense is that the best work is not telling abstract stories but  the ‘tried and true’ staple of newspaper journalism—to try and humanize stories and engage the readers to show the relevance [of medical news] to their daily lives,” Hartocollis said. “But critics are a valuable resource for newspaper reporters—every time we tell a story, we try to find a voice that will critique the report we are covering, that will give an alternative point of view, [and] that will look for flaws. We also try to explain the science in plain English without over-simplifying it.”

Ken Prewitt, the Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs at Columbia University rounded out the panel by focusing on how evidence-based medicine should be used by policy makers. Among his key points, Dr. Prewitt said there is a difference in getting the science right and the right science.

“On any good piece of policy discussion or argument, there are always three things at play: one is the evidence insofar as we have it; second is a political process which is about getting and holding power and believing in the things that [politicians] are elected to represent; and third is political ideologies,” Dr. Prewitt said. “Any situation has in play the societal consequences of this policy action. It’s our job as scientists to bring those societal consequences into as sharp a focus as possible. That’s what we do if we do our jobs right.”

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Posted on April 13, 2011

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