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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