BackgroundMedia reporting on communicable diseases has been demonstrated to affect the perception of the public.Communicable disease reporting related to foreign-born persons has not yet been evaluated.ObjectiveExamine how political leaning in the media affects reporting on tuberculosis (TB) in foreign-born persons.
MethodsHealthMap, a digital surveillance platform that aggregates news sources on global infectious diseases, was used.Data was queried for media reports from the marvos t coils U.S.
between 2011-2019, containing the term "TB" or "tuberculosis" and "foreign born", "refugee (s)," or "im (migrants)." Reports were reviewed to exclude duplicates and non-human cases.Each media source was rated using two independent media bias indicators to assess political leaning.
Forty-six non-tuberculosis reports were randomly sampled and evaluated as a control.Two independent reviewers performed sentiment analysis on each report.ResultsOf 891 TB-associated reports in the US, 46 referenced foreign-born individuals, and were included in this analysis.
60.9% (28) of reports were published in right-leaning news media and 6.5% (3) of reports in left-leaning media, while 39.
1% (18) of the control group reports were published in left- leaning media and 10.9% (5) in right-leaning media (p ConclusionPreliminary data from this pilot suggest that political leaning may affect reporting on TB in US foreign-born populations.Right-leaning news organizations produced the most reports on TB, and the majority of these reports portrayed foreign-born persons negatively.
In addition, the control group comprised of non-TB, non-foreign born reports on communicable diseases featured a higher percentage of left-leaning news outlets, suggesting that reporting chromatic ire d2 on TB in foreign-born individuals may be of greater interest to right-leaning outlets.Further investigation both in the U.S.
and globally is needed.