Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Jun 14, 2024
Date Accepted: Nov 5, 2024
Health-related Messages about Herbs, Spices and Other Botanicals Appearing in Print Issues and Websites of Legacy Media: Content Analysis and Evaluation
ABSTRACT
Background:
Legacy media are publications that existed prior to the internet. Many of these have migrated to an online format, either replacing or in parallel to their print issues. Readers place an economic value on access to the information presented, since they pay for subscriptions and place a higher degree of trust in their content. Much has been written about inaccurate and misleading health information in social media, however the content and accuracy of information contained in legacy media has been not examined in detail. Discussion of herbs, spices and other botanicals has been entirely absent from this context.
Objective:
The objectives of this study were 1) to identify the health associations to botanical products mentioned in legacy media targeted to a range of demographic groups, and 2) to evaluate these for accuracy against published scientific studies.
Methods:
Ten popular magazines targeting a range of gender, race/ethnicity and sexual orientation demographic groups were selected for analysis. Relevant content was extracted and coded over one year. Associations between specific botanical products and health factors were identified. For the most frequent botanical–health application associations, a PubMed search was done to identify research reviews corresponding to each item’s indicated applications. Where no systematic reviews were available, single research studies were sought.
Results:
237 botanical products were identified. There were 128 mentions of botanical products in the print issues, with 1,215 on the websites. Eighteen unique health applications were identified as described above and used to categorize the data. To identify the emphasis of health applications to each readership group, these were tabulated across source periodicals
Conclusions:
Comparison of the most prevalent of these associations to research literature indicates that, overall, these associations are consistent with scientific reports about the health applications of botanical products.
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