TY  - JOUR
AU  - Shereefdeen, Hisba
AU  - Grant, Lauren Elizabeth
AU  - Patel, Vayshali
AU  - MacKay, Melissa
AU  - Papadopoulos, Andrew
AU  - Cheng, Leslie
AU  - Phypers, Melissa
AU  - McWhirter, Jennifer Elizabeth
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/4/10
TI  - Assessing the Dissemination of Federal Risk Communication by News Media Outlets During Enteric Illness Outbreaks: Canadian Content Analysis
JO  - JMIR Public Health Surveill
SP  - e68724
VL  - 11
KW  - risk communication
KW  - health communication
KW  - enteric illness
KW  - foodborne illness
KW  - zoonotic disease
KW  - media
KW  - content analysis
KW  - health belief model
KW  - public health
KW  - Canada
AB  - Background: Effective dissemination of federal risk communication by news media during multijurisdictional enteric illness outbreaks can increase message reach to rapidly contain outbreaks, limit adverse outcomes, and promote informed decision-making by the public. However, dissemination of risk communication from the federal government by mass media has not been evaluated. Objective: This study aimed to describe and assess the dissemination of federal risk communication by news media outlets during multijurisdictional enteric illness outbreaks in Canada. Methods: A comprehensive systematic search of 2 databases, Canadian Newsstream and Canadian Business & Current Affairs, was run using search terms related to the source of enteric illnesses, general outbreak characteristics, and relevant enteric pathogen names to retrieve news media articles issued between 2014 and 2023, corresponding to 46 public health notices (PHNs) communicating information about multijurisdictional enteric illness outbreaks during the same period. A codebook comprised of 3 sections—general characteristics of the article, consistency and accuracy of information presented between PHNs and news media articles, and presence of health belief model constructs—was developed and applied to the dataset. Data were tabulated and visualized using RStudio (Posit). Results: News media communicated about almost all PHNs (44/46, 96%). News media commonly developed their own articles (320/528, 60.6%) to notify the public about an outbreak and its associated product recall (121/320, 37.8%), but rarely communicated about the conclusion of an outbreak (12/320, 3.8%). News media communicated most outbreak characteristics, such as the number of cases (237/319, 74.3%), but the number of deaths was communicated less than half the time (114/260, 43.8%). Benefit and barrier constructs of the health belief model were infrequently present (50/243, 20.6% and 15/243, 6.2%, respectively). Conclusions: Canadian news media disseminated information about most multijurisdictional enteric illness outbreaks. However, differences in coverage of multijurisdictional enteric illness outbreaks by news media were evident. Federal organizations can improve future risk communication of multijurisdictional enteric illness outbreaks by news media by maintaining and strengthening interorganizational connections and ensuring the information quality of PHNs as a key information source for news media. 
SN  - 2369-2960
UR  - https://publichealth.jmir.org/2025/1/e68724
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2196/68724
DO  - 10.2196/68724
ID  - info:doi/10.2196/68724
ER  -