title: Misleading presentation of breast cancer in popular magazines.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Women commonly misunderstand their risk for breast cancer, overestimating both their risk for developing the disease at a young age and their lifetime risk.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To determine whether age bias occurs in popular media coverage of breast cancer. SELECTION STRATEGY: The search term breast cancer was used to identify 389 articles in U.S. magazines with a circulation of at least 500,000 published between January 1, 1993, and June 30, 1997.
  
  
  METHODS
  Presence of age-related themes and age of patients with breast cancer who were described in vignettes.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Age-related themes included breast cancer as a cause of premature death, breast cancer in mothers of young children, and the impact of a breast cancer diagnosis on dating and marriage. Factual information about age as a risk factor for breast cancer was presented in only 14% of articles, and age was often included in vignettes describing a woman with breast cancer. Thirty-four percent of the articles included one or more breast cancer vignettes. These articles included 172 unique vignettes in which patient age was described. In 84% of the vignettes (144 of 172), women were diagnosed with breast cancer before 50 years of age; in 47% (80 of 172), women were diagnosed before 40 years of age. On the basis of the age-specific incidence of breast cancer in the United States, the expected percentages would be 16% and 3.6%, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Stories about breast cancer in popular U.S. magazines misrepresent the age distribution of the disease, emphasizing atypical cases of early-onset breast cancer and their social consequences. This presentation of breast cancer may contribute to women's fears of breast cancer and to overestimates of personal risk.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical History and Ethics, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash., USA. wburke@u.washington.edu
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Burke
authors.forename: A H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Olsen
authors.forename: L E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Pinsky
authors.forename: S E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Reynolds
authors.forename: N A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Press
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006266:Health Education; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D010506:Periodicals as Topic; D012307:Risk Factors; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology