The American lifestyle is far from a picture of health — this is no secret. Social media posts joke about the American diet, while research studies reprimand our sleep habits. We may have been conditioned to accept the latest statistics about national health outcomes without the bat of an eye, but it doesn’t have to be this way. The issue demands an urgent solution, but from who?
Media sources are divided on whether individuals must improve their own health outcomes or if policy changes must target socioeconomic factors to improve public health.
In reality, the solution to public health issues involves both perspectives. It is true that individuals must make healthy choices to improve their own outcomes. But the ability to make these positive health decisions is not available to everyone. For individuals living in food deserts or polluted neighborhoods, navigating housing shortages or facing unemployment, the opportunity to maintain a healthy lifestyle simply may not exist.
However, media sources’ display of only one perspective while reprimanding the other can result in harmful, divisive and incomplete attributions.
Even more, the blame on individuals for public health decline is more prevalent within right-leaning media sources, while left-leaning media focuses on socio-political determinants of health, according to a 2018 study by Xu, et al.
This ideological divide creates a risk for political polarization to infect the sphere of public health. Inconsistencies between news sources can also establish a split between the information consumed and the different versions of reality accepted by the American public.
The Xu, et al. study finds that conservative policymakers are likely to ignore news stories about health disparities due to the perceived association of health disparities and policy solutions with liberal ideology. This harmful attribution counters extensive efforts made by agencies such as the Center for Disease Control in achieving equitable healthcare.
Evidently, when political polarization seeps into health media, harmful labels and associations can create roadblocks to essential policy decisions.
For a state like Wisconsin, where political divides dominate everything from casual conversations to the branches of the state government, the consequences are extreme. If conservative and liberal individuals believe in two separate realities with regard to public health, the chances of government action seem grim.
Every year since Gov. Tony Evers took office in 2019, Evers has been proposing a Medicaid expansion plan that would raise eligibility and coverage, according to WisDems. Wisconsin is one of only 10 states that have yet to expand Medicaid coverage, and the expansion would save the state $1.7 billion in unnecessary healthcare costs.
But, Republican officials have blatantly denied the existence of a health insurance coverage gap every single time, according to WPR. They claimed that accessibility to affordable health insurance is not an issue, despite a 2022 report that found over 300,000 Wisconsinites uninsured.
This might not come as a surprise given the foundations of liberal and conservative ideologies. While the former believes in social determinants of health and government intervention, conservatives believe in personal responsibility for individual health outcomes, according to “Polarization and the Politics of Personal Responsibility” by Mark D. Brewer and Jeffrey M. Stonecash.
But it is important to ask if there is room for left and right associations in the world of health emergencies and public health crises. Journalists hold a responsibility to remain loyal to the truth, even when they contradict political alliances.
Media divides create issues that lie beyond the basic tenets of the two belief systems. Let’s go back to one of the largest public health crises of recent years: the COVID-19 pandemic.
A study conducted at the University of Alabama reviewed over 600 articles from more than 2,000 media sources after categorizing them as left or right-leaning. Researchers found that conservative-leaning media minimized the risk of COVID-19 and was more likely to spread misinformation regarding the pandemic. Unlike their right-leaning counterparts, liberal media was found to paint preventative measures in a positive light and provided more exposure and warning regarding the risks of the virus.
It may have been this very division that resulted in the infamous association of necessary precautions and administrative responses with political connotations. At a time when the nation was required to unite under the guidance of scientists and medical experts, mistrust in health officials declined and political misinformation surged, according to a study published in the National Library of Medicine.
It is important to note that the media is not solely responsible for these divisions. Fundamental differences between conservative and liberal values were more responsible for conservatives’ dismissive attitudes toward the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study published in the National Library of Medicine.
Even government officials share part of the responsibility for minimizing public health issues. It’s hard to forget former President Donald Trump’s infamous framing of the COVID-19 pandemic as a “Fake News Media Conspiracy.”
Regardless, news sources should not play a role in perpetuating these ideological splits. The media should be held accountable for its framing of health issues in a manner that leads to harmful attributions and promotes misinformation.
Crucial health policy reform should not become muddled with polarized political rhetoric, and change starts with the messengers that relay information to the public.
Aanika Parikh ([email protected]) is a junior studying molecular and cell biology.
