Claims of causality in health news: a randomised trial.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Misleading news claims can be detrimental to public health. We aimed to improve the alignment between causal claims and evidence, without losing news interest (counter to assumptions that news is not interested in communicating caution).

Methods

We tested two interventions in press releases, which are the main sources for science and health news: (a) aligning the headlines and main causal claims with the underlying evidence (strong for experimental, cautious for correlational) and (b) inserting explicit statements/caveats about inferring causality. The 'participants' were press releases on health-related topics (N = 312; control = 89, claim alignment = 64, causality statement = 79, both = 80) from nine press offices (journals, universities, funders). Outcomes were

SUBMITTER: Adams RC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6521363 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature