Currently submitted to: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Jun 6, 2026
Open Peer Review Period: Jun 8, 2026 - Aug 3, 2026
(currently open for review)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Media Consumption Patterns and Public Health Knowledge: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Climate Change, Chronic Disease, and Infectious Disease Understanding Among U.S. Adults
ABSTRACT
Background:
Media consumption is a pathway through which the public encounters health information, misinformation, and politicized interpretations of evidence, yet its relationship with knowledge across multiple health domains remains incompletely understood.
Objective:
We conducted a cross-sectional survey of U.S. adults recruited through CloudResearch Connect to examine associations among media source use, institutional trust, demographic characteristics, and knowledge accuracy regarding climate change, type 2 diabetes, and infectious diseases.
Methods:
After excluding invalid responses and a failed attention check, 509 participants were included. Knowledge was assessed with domain-specific true/false items scored as correct, incorrect, or “I don’t know,” producing climate change, chronic disease, infectious disease, and total knowledge scores.
Results:
Rural residence, lower income, lack of health insurance, and absence of a primary care provider were associated with lower knowledge across several domains, suggesting structural barriers to reliable health information. Trust in the CDC, physicians, and pharmacists showed the strongest and most consistent positive associations with knowledge. Political affiliation and consumption of ideologically distinct news sources were most strongly associated with climate change and infectious disease knowledge, but less so with diabetes knowledge.
Conclusions:
These findings suggest that public health literacy interventions should address both polarized media environments and inequitable access to trusted clinical and institutional information.
Citation
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Copyright
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