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DS 5 Develop a Tool to Enhance Media Reporting of Fatal and Nonfatal Drownings

Key area

Data Surveillance

Develop and disseminate a tool to enhance media reporting of fatal and nonfatal drowning to include details on known risk factors, such as water conditions, and evidence-based prevention strategies, such as isolation fencing, swim ability, life jacket use, lifeguard presence, alcohol, or drug use.

Spectrum level: Changing Organizational Practices Educating Providers

Evidence level: Medium

Implementation levels: Community National

Rationale:

Currently, timely drowning surveillance often relies on media reports (references). Media reports often lack pertinent data for decision making regarding prevention. A guide which includes prompts to help gather key pieces of information has the potential to serve two purposes:

  1. Better educate the public regarding the causes and prevention of drowning at the time the drowning is reported
  2. Allow timely surveillance of drowning events to guide prevention policies.

Anticipated Impact:

After implementing this recommendation, you can expect to experience the following outcomes.

  • Impactful reporting leads to improved public awareness of drowning risks and prevention strategies.
  • Media reports often lead to real time surveillance for a health issues, and accurate reporting can improve timely surveillance to guide drowning prevention policies and programs, as well as provide accurate and useful information to readers and viewers.

Evidence:

It is well established that media can assist in addressing public health issues. CDC has an on-line newsroom (cdc.gov/media) to assist in reporting on public health issues. US CPSC has used media reports to identify pool & spa drownings to supplement their surveillance. Scientific publications have validated that childhood drownings are routinely reported on by local media and can serve as a measure for timely surveillance.

The media's impact on injury prevention has been explored around road safety and similar work could be undertaken for drowning prevention and guidance tools similar to what is recommended here have been developed.

Evidence Sources:

Examples from road safety: Lucas AJ, Alonso F, Faus M, Javadinejad A. The Role of News Media in Reducing Traffic Accidents. Societies. 2024; 14(5):56. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc14050056

World Health Organization. Road Safety Reporting. https://www.who.int/teams/social-determinants-of-health/safety-and-mobility/road-safety-reporting

Yankson IK, Browne EN, Tagbor H, Donkor P, Quansah R, Asare GE, Mock CN, Ebel BE. Reporting on road traffic injury: content analysis of injuries and prevention opportunities in Ghanaian newspapers. Inj Prev. 2010 Jun;16(3):194-7. doi: 10.1136/ip.2009.024174. PMID: 20570987; PMCID: PMC3271730.

Keller ME, Ledesma RD, Poó FM, Peden M. Newspaper framing of motor vehicle crashes and road safety in Argentina. Int J Inj Contr Saf Promot. 2024 Mar;31(1):86-95. doi: 10.1080/17457300.2023.2266810. Epub 2023 Nov 8. PMID: 37936482.

Keefe E, LaJeunesse S, Heiny S. Shaping the narrative around traffic injury: A media framing guide for transportation and public health professionals, Second edition (2022). Collaborative Sciences Center for Road Safety. www.roadsafety.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/CSCRSFGuidev2.pdf

High Risk Populations Addressed:

All populations can benefit from implementation of this recommendation.

Evaluation Metrics:

Indicators of long-term impact:

  • Media, especially media reaching high-risk populations, presents stories on fatal and nonfatal drowning in a way that people better understand the risk of drowning and prevention strategies
  • The media provides more encompassing and accurate data to aid researchers in drowning surveillance
  • Pre and post evaluations of selected media reports who have been trained compared to a control with no training.
  • Increase in the number of stories on drowning provided by media sources
  • Increases in the percent of media reports that included accurate and recommended expert information

Indicators of intermediate impact:

  • Greater collection and analysis of media resources for appropriate, inappropriate, and missing information

Indicators of initial impact:

  • Increase in downloads of the tool
  • Increase in media attendance on trainings and webinars

Implementation:

Consider the following to ensure successful implementation:

  • Inform and educate the public at the time the report is released to reinforce prevention messages in a more immediate timeframe.
  • Developed tools that are tested for ease of use by the target population (the media).
  • Provide training for media to use developed tools.
  • Enhance collection and analysis of media resources for appropriate, inappropriate, and missing information to begin having a greater understanding of the training needed.

Challenges to Implementation:

When implementing this recommendation, you might encounter challenges related to the following factors.

  • Connection between public health and the local media who would be covering these stories may not be easy.
  • Media may resist needs that may not be seen as newsworthy, but are crucial for the intent of this recommendation.

Potential Facilitators:

The following factors might facilitate the implementation of this recommendation.

  • A well developed and tested tool might make reporting on drowning easier for the media and their reporters.

GAP Recommendation:

None