Healthnewsreview is related to health care intervention

Gary Schwitzer, Healthnewsreview.org founder and publisher

Editor’s Note: AHCJ is re -publishing HealthnewsreView standards. This is because if you want to evaluate your work by applying the question as a quality checklist, it is useful at any time. This process is likely to help the audience to explore the health news better and make the best decision on their health.

In 2004, researchers at the University of New Castle, Australia, began the pioneering website Media Doctor Australia.

At the heart of their work was the 10 standardized criteria used to review the story. One year later, I started building the Healthnewsreview.org, a US website based in the US, which is now defined in the United States, and I was approved by Australia’s major researchers to adopt these standards.

Nearly 20 years later, I have never seen a better standard for reviewing the story of health care intervention. It was a patient -centered approach that suggested questions that patients have to answer when they are experiencing news about treatment, testing, products and procedures.

In the end, projects in Canada, Hong Kong, Japan and Germany adopted the same Australian standard. We were the largest contributors (50 people in peaks), the largest results (dozens of articles at the highest level), the largest international followers (50 in the peak), and the largest audience (about $ 800,000 per year). I was invited to Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, the United Kingdom, Finland, Germany, India, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico and Spain.

For 16 years, our team has published detailed reviews on more than 2,600 news articles, providing “satisfactory”, “not satisfactory” or “not applied” for each standard. We also reviewed 600 news releases using slightly different standards.

The following is a way to explain the standards and its importance.

#1 What is this story appropriately discussed about arbitration costs? Our long -term experience of thousands of stories shows that the cost standard has the most dissatisfied score. The news article does not help patients and consumers unless they solve the cost.

#2 Is the story appropriately the benefits of arbitration? New health treatment should work well. When you read the story, people want to know. How effective is intervention? Is the number back up?

#3 This story properly explains the damage of mediation/quantitative harmony? In the news, if you are only listening to the potential benefits of exams and treatment, run to the hill. What is the damage and how often does it happen?

#4 Does the story seem to figure out the quality of evidence? Ideally, health care intervention is under strict tests to prove that they are effective. When reading about new interventions, devices or diagnostic tools, people must have a sense of how strictly the evidence is.

#5 This story is a disease? Sometimes a new state or a name for the disease can be an opportunity to actually medical (and profit) of normal health. Readers do not guarantee well depending on exaggerated or exaggerated conditions. (Note: Examples here include converting risk factors into disease, which means that it must be treated (e.g. low bone mineral density becomes osteoporosis) or normal state (aging, bald, wrinkles, shy).

#6 This story uses independent sources and identifies conflicts? Health care is associated with conflicts. Readers need to know if they are interested in the source of the story. For example, can researchers benefit from the treatment of promotion? Is it a paid consultant for a company that manufactures relevant pharmaceuticals? Readers also qualify for the opinions of objective and independent third -party experts who are essential to backstairs of exaggerated claims.

#7 This story compares a new approach to an existing alternative? It does not mean that there is something new in health care. When reading new drugs, tests, surgery, etc., readers should inform you that there may be other options on the table. This option can have longer and better results.

#8 This story pays attention to the use of treatment/testing/product/procedure? New medical treatment is often attracted to the public before it is provided to the public. After reading a story about new intervention, people should be able to answer. Is it actually provided to me?

#9 The story establishes the true novelty of the approach? Often new or praised as a novel is not actually. Or it may be a new, but it cannot be better. Therefore, when reading about “new” medical interventions, people need to know: what is really new and different about this idea?

#10 Does this story seem to depend only on the press release? Sometimes the news article relies entirely or greatly on the PR news release and does not disclose it. Readers need to know if the story does not contain original reports.

I didn’t think that all ten criteria had the same weight or importance. The five and the grades I listed below and the grades for them are the most important in my view. It is also the most difficult category for journalists and PR professionals. Our reviewers often pointed out incomplete news articles (poor scores) that often depend only on PR news releases (and not good scores).

The following is the most common reported defect that contributed to the low ratio.

• Frame studies are often used relatively relatively, the most positive light. pure, Risk reduction levels.
• Writing about research results Surrogate Or surrogate marker without explaining the limitations of such results.
• While using causal relationships inappropriate, without explaining the limitations of writing and the limitations of such results.
• Based on the input of a single source, people often have unveiled conflicts. More badly, sometimes the reporter or company accepted what was valuable at the source.
• Anecdote: Watch out for a single analysis story quoted by the patient. It can be used as a promotional tool.

Some observations have begun in the news release review.

• News of nutrition, nutritional supplements or “natural” interventions tended to continue to promote more than evidence.
• Another notable category of over -advertising was news release for various new cancer tests. We thought that many people made misunderstandings for patients and the general public. We mentioned that we did not justify the PR release, misunderstandings, and arguments that did not disclose conflicts, or that we did not exaggerate ideas beyond the boundaries of what evidence showed.

One of the most satisfying types of feedback we received is the reporter who brings 10 criteria to the editor to include some of the stories that the editor wanted to delete. In some cases, this push bag was important because reporters gained more experiences on these topics than editors.

We have been funded for eight and a half years by the information medical decision -making foundation (now extinction) and Laura and John Arnold Foundation Arnold Venture). We spent 19 months without raising money once during the 16 -year operation, but we kept the site alive.

But finally, in 2022, the site of the site web code was too expensive, so there was too much money to fix, so the publisher (ME) was too old. So we decided to put down the site. (You can see what it looks like Through Wei Back MachineBut please give me time to load.)

I am pleased that AHCJ is paying attention to the standards at the core of our efforts to help people improve their critical thinking about arguments of health care.

What others talked about Healthnewsreview.org

Guide to reading health care news. Zhap Medical Medicine. Posted online on May 5, 2014. Doi: 10.1001/jamainternMed.2014.1359.

News report:

Gary Schwitzer has been a medical journalist for almost 50 years and is the founder and publisher of Healthnewsreview.org for 16 years.