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[Mistakes and Drawbacks in German Newspaper Articles on Epidemiologic Studies: "Meat Consumption and Colorectal
1Zentrum für klinische Epidemiologie, Institut für Medizinische Informatik, Biometrie und Epidemiologie, Essen.
Background:
Results of epidemiologic studies are often reported in the media because they are of vital interest for many people. Using the example of meat consumption and colorectal cancer, we investigated whether results of epidemiologic studies are reported in an understandable and correct manner in German newspapers and magazines.
Methods:
We gathered all articles published in 13 selected German newspapers and magazines that referred to a press release on meat consumption and colorectal cancer issued by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) on October 26th 2015. We analyzed these articles with regard to comprehensibility and correctness, and assessed the criteria used by the newspapers and magazines to judge the credibility of the research results.
Results:
In the IARC press release, relative risks were used ("The experts concluded that each 50 gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%"), which 11 of 13 print media adopted. However, this wording may be misinterpreted by many readers as an increase of 18 percentage points, indicating that absolute risks should be preferred to relative risks in the newspapers and magazines. Only 6 print media reported absolute risks. 5 print media misleadingly reported thresholds for safe meat consumption. Other mistakes were vague descriptions of the index group (e.g. "excessive meat consumption" without specifying the exact amount (g/day)) and the reference group, and lack of time periods for which risks were estimated. To judge the credibility of the research on meat consumption and cancer risk, criteria for the quality of epidemiologic studies such as confounding and precision in the assessment of meat consumption were hardly taken into account.
Conclusion:
Scientific institutions should attach more importance to an understandable presentation of measures of occurrence, measures of effects and important sources of bias in press releases. In the case of meat consumption and colorectal cancer, a higher quality of the press release by the IARC - in particular, reporting absolute instead of relative risks - would probably have led to less misleading publications in the print media.
