News stories ranging from high-profile government hearings to celebrity scandals point to an increasing trend in the abuse of prescription opioids, such as OxyContin. But is the media merely reporting these news stories, or is it possible that their coverage of opioid abuse is piquing the public’s curiosity and subtly (if unintentionally) encouraging them to give the drugs a try?
A retrospective study by John Brownstein, PhD, of the Children’s Hospital Informatics Program (CHIP) and Children’s Division of Emergency Medicine, compares data from Google News Archives with death records from the National Center for Health Statistics. The natural assumption, Brownstein says, is that increases in deaths from opioids would be followed by increases in media coverage of the problem, reflecting reporting on issues of social concern. But statistical analysis showed that the reverse was true — within two to six months after major media reporting, opioid-related deaths increased. [click to continue…]
