Table 1.
Characteristics of Articles That Mentioned Health Effects
| Positive impression (benefits outweigh harms) (N = 72) | Negative impression (harms outweigh benefits) (N = 46) | Neutral impression (N = 27) | Total | p value | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article focus | |||||
| Health and public health | 6 (19.4) | 21 (67.7) | 4 (12.9) | 31 | < .001 |
| Non-health* | 66 (57.9) | 25 (21.9) | 23 (20.2) | 114 | |
| Total | 72 (49.7) | 46 (31.7) | 27 (18.6) | 145 | |
| Publication | |||||
| USA Today | 11 (33.3) | 16 (48.5) | 6 (18.2) | 33 | < .001 |
| New York Times | 13 (39.4) | 11 (33.3) | 9 (27.3) | 33 | |
| Los Angeles Times† | 21 (77.8) | 2 (7.4) | 4 (14.8) | ||
| New York Post | 9 (60.0) | 4 (26.7) | 2 (13.3) | 15 | |
| The Denver Post | 5 (26.3) | 9 (47.4) | 5 (26.3) | ||
| Daily News New York | 13 (72.2) | 4 (22.2) | 1 (5.6) | 18 | |
| Health effects listed in article‡ | |||||
| Described both benefits and harms | 24 (54.5) | 9 (20.5) | 11 (25.0) | 44 | < .001 |
| Described benefits only | 42 (93.3) | 0 (0) | 3 (6.7) | 45 | |
| Described harms only | 5 (9.3) | 37 (68.5) | 12 (22.2) | 54 | |
| Year of publication | |||||
| 2012 | 1 (11.1) | 6 (66.7) | 2 (22.2) | 9 | 0.10 |
| 2013 | 8 (36.4) | 8 (36.4) | 6 (27.3) | 22 | |
| 2014 | 28 (48.3) | 21 (36.2) | 9 (15.5) | 58 | |
| 2015 | 22 (61.1) | 7 (19.4) | 7 (19.4) | 36 | |
| 2016 | 13 (65.0) | 4 (20.0) | 3 (15.0) | 20 | |
*Articles related to business, public policy, celebrity/entertainment/other, crime
†Only the past 6 months were available on LexisNexis
‡Two articles while focused on health did not mention explicit benefits or harms and were therefore not included in this analysis