Prime-time television exposure to high priority school-aged social-developmental issues.
BACKGROUND
The purpose of this study is to quantify the material children and adolescents are exposed to while watching prime-time television so that school educators, health professionals, and parents can focus on issues of maximum exposure that must be addressed.


METHODS
Prime-time programming was recorded from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Hawaiian Standard Time daily for 2 weeks in July 2005. Recordings were then viewed to identify social behaviors of interest.


RESULTS
Each hour on average, sex was referenced 1.8 times, drugs 0.6 times, tobacco 0.3 times, alcohol 2.4 times, and violence/crime 6.0 times per network. Messages advocating exercise, anti-drug advocacy, and anti-smoking advocacy were each shown 0.2 times per hour; while anti-alcohol advocacy was shown 0.1 times per hour.


CONCLUSIONS
School educators, health professionals, and parents must recognize that prime-time television frequently exposes viewers to issues that are of critical importance to the health and social development of school-aged children and adolescents.
Suzuki
Sherrie
S
Department of Pediatrics, University of Hawai'i John A. Burns School of Medicine, Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women and Children, Honolulu, HI 96826, USA.
Itano
Davin
D
Yamamoto
Loren G
LG
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002669:Child Welfare; D005260:Female; D006254:Hawaii; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012574:Schools; D012919:Social Behavior; D012922:Social Change; D040241:Social Marketing; D013334:Students; D013690:Television / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*