title: The media and access issues: content analysis of Canadian newspaper coverage of health policy decisions.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Previous studies have demonstrated how the media has an influence on policy decisions and healthcare coverage. Studies of Canadian media have shown that news coverage often emphasizes and hypes certain aspects of high profile health debates. We hypothesized that in Canadian media coverage of access to healthcare issues about therapies and technologies including for rare diseases, the media would be largely sympathetic towards patients, thus adding to public debate that largely favors increased access to healthcare-even in the face of equivocal evidence regarding efficacy.
  
  
  METHODS
  In order to test this hypothesis, we conducted a content analysis of 530 news articles about access to health therapies and technologies from 15 major Canadian newspapers over a 10-year period. Articles were analyzed for the perspectives presented in the articles and the types of reasons or arguments presented either for or against the particular access issue portrayed in the news articles.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found that news media coverage was largely sympathetic towards increasing healthcare funding and ease of access to healthcare (77.4 %). Rare diseases and orphan drugs were the most common issues raised (22.6 %). Patients perspectives were often highlighted in articles (42.3 %). 96.8 % of articles discussed why access to healthcare needs to increase, and discussion that questioned increased access was only included in 33.6 % articles.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We found that news media favors a patient access ethos, which may contribute to a difficult policy-making environment.
authors: School of Linguistics and Language Studies, Carleton University, Paterson Hall 236, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6, Canada. christen.rachul@carleton.ca.
authors: Christen
authors: C
authors: Rachul
authors: Faculty of Law and School of Public Health, Health Law Institute, University of Alberta, Office 468, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2H5, Canada. caulfield@ualberta.ca.
authors: Timothy
authors: T
authors: Caulfield
mesh_terms: D002170:Canada; D003657:Decision Making; D006291:Health Policy; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D019458:Insurance Coverage; D009524:Newspapers as Topic