Kaiser Study Finds Health Content Placed in Grey's Anatomy Episode Quadrupled Awareness Among Audience

[Source: KFF.org] September 16, 2008, Washington, D.C. - Most viewers who tune in each night to television’s top-rated sitcoms and dramas do so because they want to be entertained, but according to two new studies released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation, many of them are being educated about important health issues at the same time.

In order to document how well viewers learn health information from entertainment television, the Foundation worked with writers at Grey’s Anatomy to embed a health message in an episode, and then surveyed viewers on the topic before and after the episode aired. The storyline involved an HIV positive pregnant woman who learns that with the proper treatment, she has a 98% chance of having a healthy baby. The study found that the audience’s awareness of this information increased by 46 percentage points (from 15% to 61%), a four-fold increase among all viewers. This translates to more than eight million people learning correct information about mother-to-child HIV transmission rates from watching the episode.

The study, titled Television as a Health Educator: A Case Study of Grey’s Anatomy included three national random-digit-dial telephone surveys of regular viewers of the show, conducted one week before, one week after, and – to test retention of the information – six weeks after the target episode aired. After six weeks, 45% of the episode’s viewers correctly responded about the chances of mother-to-child HIV transmission - down from the high of 61%, but still three times higher than before the episode aired.

“For better or worse, viewers do absorb the health information they see on TV, so it’s important for these shows to get it right,” said Victoria Rideout, vice president and director of The Program for the Study of Media and Health at the Kaiser Family Foundation, and author of the Grey’s study. “This study shows the enormous potential for entertainment television to serve as a health educator.”

Another study released today by the Foundation and the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center’s Hollywood, Health & Society indicates that health content is prevalent on popular prime time television. An analysis of three seasons (2004-2006) of top-ten-rated prime time scripted shows reveals that six out of ten episodes (59%) had at least one health storyline, and that most of those storylines provided a strong (32%) or moderate (29%) level of educational content. The typical episode in the analysis averaged about one and one half health storylines, indicating that millions of television viewers are regularly exposed to health content.

“Whether health information is placed in these shows deliberately or just occurs as part of the creative process, the fact is that viewers are being exposed to a lot of health information on prime time television,” said Sheila Murphy, associate professor of communication at USC, and lead author of the report, titled How Healthy is Prime Time? An Analysis of Health Content in Popular Prime Time Television Programs. “Health-related content appears in comedies and dramas, hospital shows and shows that have nothing to do with the medical profession.”

One measure of the effectiveness of public awareness campaigns is if the audience takes an action based on the campaign. The study of Grey’s Anatomy viewers found that 17% of regular viewers – or about three million people nationwide – said they had tried to “find more information” about a health issue or “spoken with a doctor or other health care professional” because of something they saw on the show.

“We’ve always known we have a passionate and engaged audience at Grey’s Anatomy,” said Elizabeth Klaviter, director of medical research for the series. “But this study shows us how much they are affected by the health information in the show, and that’s a responsibility we take very seriously.”

Additional Findings:

Television as a Health Educator: A Case Study of Grey's Anatomy:

• The percentage of viewers who said it was “irresponsible for a woman who knows she is HIV positive to have a baby” dropped from 61% to 34% after the episode aired. Six weeks after broadcast, the figure had gone back up to 47%, still 14 percentage points below the pre-show level.
• About three in ten (29%) regular Grey’s viewers say they think the medical information on the show is ‘very’ accurate, while another 58% say it’s ‘somewhat’ accurate.
• Just under half (45%) of all regular viewers say they have learned something new about a health issue from the show.
• After the target episode aired, the health information about mother-to-child HIV transmission rates was referenced by at least 35 blogs. Viewers commented that the storyline “made me baul [sic] my eyes out,” or “still has my brain clicking and whirring.” Others said “Wow, 98%, I had no idea,” and “That stunned me too. I thought it was almost a certainty for the child to get it. Wow.”

How Healthy is Prime Time? An Analysis of Health Content in Popular Prime Time Television Programs:

• The most common health topic found in top-rated TV shows was an unusual illness or disease. This topic appeared more than four times as often as heart disease, five times as often as cancer, and 20 times as often as diabetes—all more prevalent medical conditions among the American populace.
• Health storylines are much more likely to focus on symptoms (65%), treatment (59%) and diagnosis (50%) than prevention (10%).
• One in ten of the top-rated shows (10%) included a storyline about access to care, such as a lack of insurance, or cutbacks in services at medical facilities.
• Because of differences in the types of shows they watch – more comedies, fewer medical shows – African American and Hispanic audiences are exposed to fewer health storylines than are viewers overall. There were 792 health storylines in the sample of shows from Nielsen’s overall top-ten shows, compared to 564 in the top-ten shows among African Americans, and 698 in the top-ten English-language shows among Hispanics.

Background information on mother-to-child transmission of HIV in the U.S.:

Without treatment, the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is 25%. In the past, there was no effective treatment available and hundreds of HIV-positive babies were born in the U.S. each year. Today, the risk is less than 2% if the proper medication and care are received - one of the true success stories of the fight against HIV/AIDS. But few members of the public are aware of the progress that has been made, and some HIV-positive women who choose to have children face prejudice and disapproval for that decision.

Methodology

Television As a Health Educator: A Case Study of Grey’s Anatomy, by Victoria Rideout, MA, vice president and director, Program for the Study of Media and Health, Kaiser Family Foundation: Three national random-digit-dial telephone surveys were conducted to measure the impact of a storyline featured in the May 1, 2008 episode of the popular ABC television show Grey’s Anatomy. The surveys were conducted one week before, one week after, and six weeks after the target episode aired. Each survey used a separate sample of approximately 500 regular viewers of Grey’s Anatomy (people who usually watch at least three out of four new episodes). For second and third surveys, respondents were screened for viewers who had seen the target episode. The surveys were designed and analyzed by staff at the Kaiser Family Foundation in consultation with Princeton Survey Research Associates International (PSRAI). The margin of sampling error for the surveys was ±5.0%, ±5.1%, and ±4.9%. The combined sample size across all three surveys was 1505 respondents.

How Healthy is Prime Time? An Analysis of Health Content in Popular Prime Time Television Programs, by Sheila Murphy, PhD and Heather Hether, MA of the Annenberg School for Communication and Victoria Rideout, MA of the Kaiser Family Foundation: The data for this study were drawn from the Television Monitoring Project of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California (USC). Every episode of the top ten prime time scripted TV shows among 18–49 year-olds from the Spring seasons of 2004, 2005 and 2006 were recorded and all health-related content was coded. A “health storyline” is any health topic that was discussed for at least three lines of dialogue, or was featured as a minor or major storyline in the episode. In order to explore potential differences in shows viewed by different audiences, the top ten shows for African American and Hispanic audiences (English language programming only) were also recorded and analyzed. Unless otherwise noted, all findings concern the shows in the General Audience sample, and refer to the average across all three years of the study. In the end, a total of 723 hours of television content were analyzed, including 947 episodes across 33 different series.

The two reports were released today at a forum in Washington, DC featuring presentations by Vicky Rideout, M.A., vice president, and director, Program for the Study of Media and Health, Kaiser Family Foundation and Sheila Murphy, Ph.D., associate professor, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California. A panel discussion moderated by Jackie Judd, vice president and senior advisor for communications, Kaiser Family Foundation, included Neal Baer, M.D., executive producer and writer, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit; Jay M. Bernhardt, Ph.D., M.P.H., director, National Center for Health Marketing, CDC; Sandra de Castro Buffington, director, Hollywood, Health & Society, USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center; and Elizabeth Klaviter, M.F.A., director of medical research, Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice. All materials and an archived web cast of the event can be viewed online.

The Kaiser Family Foundation is a non-profit private operating foundation, based in Menlo Park, California, dedicated to producing and communicating the best possible information, research and analysis on health issues.