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Senior Citizen Health & Medicine
Public Wants More News Coverage of MRSA Staph
Infection Increase
Number one story with consumers but number nine in
media coverage
 Nov. 7, 2007 - News about the dangers of an
antibiotic-resistant staph infection (MRSA) caught the public's
attention during the week of October 14-19. More than a quarter of
Americans paid very close attention to this story and 18% listed it as
the single news story they followed more closely than any other –
placing it at the top of the weekly news interest index.
The national news media covered the MRSA story, but
overall coverage lagged behind public interest. Only 3% of the national
newshole was devoted to this story, making it the 9th most heavily
covered story of the week. The story was featured more prominently on
network TV news than on other sectors.
Women followed the MRSA story more closely than men
(31% vs. 21% followed very closely). More than a quarter of women (26%)
listed this as their most closely followed story of the week. Men were
more focused on Iraq and the presidential campaign, only 10% listed MRSA
as their top story of the week.
Parents were no more likely than non-parents to pay
close attention to the story, but they are slightly more worried about
the potential dangers of the infection. More than half (52%) of those
who have children under age 18 living in their household are very or
somewhat worried that they or someone in their household will be exposed
to the infection.
This compares with 39% of non-parents. Among the
general public, 44% are at least somewhat worried about being exposed to
the infection. This is higher than the percentage who were worried about
being exposed to SARS in the spring of 2003 (35% were very or somewhat
worried).
These findings are based on the most recent
installment of the weekly News Interest Index, an ongoing project of the
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
The index, building on the Center's longstanding
research into public attentiveness to major news stories, examines news
interest as it relates to the news media's agenda. The weekly survey is
conducted in conjunction with The Project for Excellence in Journalism's
News Coverage Index, which monitors the news reported by major
newspaper, television, radio and online news outlets on an ongoing
basis. In this week, data relating to news coverage was collected from
October 14-19 and survey data measuring public interest in the top news
stories of the week was collected October 19-22 from a nationally
representative sample of 1,010 adults.
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