The Polarizing Effect of News Media Messages About the Social
Determinants of Health
Sarah E. Gollust, PhD, Paula M. Lantz, PhD and Peter A. Ubel, MD
American Journal of Public Health, 99:12, 2160-2167
Framing health problems in terms of the social determinants of health
aims to shift policy attention to nonmedical strategies to improve
population health, yet little is known about how the public responds to
these messages. We conducted an experiment to test the effect of a news
article describing the social determinants of type 2 diabetes on the
public's support for diabetes prevention strategies. We found that
exposure to the social determinants message led to a divergence between
Republicans' and Democrats' opinions, relative to their opinions after
viewing an article with no message about the causes of diabetes. These
results signify that increasing public awareness of the social
determinants of health may not uniformly increase public support for
policy action.
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/99/12/2160
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