CHANGES IN NEWSPAPER COVERAGE OF CARDIOVASCULAR HEALTH ISSUES IN CONJUNCTION WITH A COMMUNITY-BASED INTERVENTION

Numerous community-based prevention projects, with significant media c omponents, have been conducted over the past decade. Multiple evaluati on strategies have been used to document the effectiveness of these in terventions, including intermediate measures of community impact such as assessment of media coverage, As part of the evaluation of a commun ity-based intervention (the Bootheel Heart Health Project), disseminat ion of information on cardiovascular disease (CVD) was measured throug h a media content analysis of newspapers, Data were analyzed from 23 n ewspapers in six rural counties in southeastern Missouri for the perio d October 1988 through August 1993. An increase was observed in CVD-re lated coverage in the pre-intervention period (mean articles per month = 31.5) compared with the postintervention period (mean articles per month = 50.7) (F = 10.2; P = 0.003). In supporting data from a separat e randomized risk factor survey of 1510 residents in the same area, re spondents reported hearing of heart health coalitions primarily throug h local newspapers. The current study documents increasing print media coverage of cardiovascular health issues in a high-risk, rural area a nd shows that media content analysis can be a useful evaluation tool i n community-based interventions.