Division In Health Through the Media
By Omar Amin
Omar is a third-year medical student in the UK who is passionate about Global Health. He is passionate about photography and journalism, writing for his university's newspaper.
The media's influence on public health interpretation in the UK is significant, and it has a profound effect on the level of trust in institutions such as the NHS, from both positive and negative perspectives. It can both help support healthcare access through education and sow distrust through negligent reporting, especially pertaining to minority communities. This article aims to understand the historical ways that print media has contributed to the development of distrust in healthcare among minoritised communities in the UK, and how it can be changed for the better.
The experience of minority communities establishing themselves within the UK has been difficult. The media has had a significant role to play in this. Divisive and fear-mongering headlines have often been staples in news outlets across the years. In health, the media has always held significance, lending it a lot of power. In recent times, health reporting has cost of years of hurt leading to severe distrust in minority groups towards healthcare services. This deep scepticism has a part to play in the issues faced by healthcare professionals trying to understand why there is decreased engagement and ultimately poorer health outcomes. While attempts to repair trust are beginning, the legacy of previous media depictions and systemic prejudices continue to throw a long shadow. Consequently, it is imperative to understand what historical reporting looked like towards minoritised communities.
The article below is an excerpt from the Coventry Daily Telegraph, which was published on Tuesday, October 26, 1954 (1). One of the headings in its "special issue" is "Would you let your daughter to marry a negro?". Contextually, the publication of this headline occurred approximately six years after the HMT Empire Windrush docked. In other words, this was a period of accelerating multiculturalism following World War II.
The article is indicative of the pervasive fear regarding racial mixing and the notion that Black individuals were inadequate as family members, colleagues, or neighbours. The 'othering' of the Windrush Generation was exacerbated by this type of reporting, which solidified the belief that Black individuals were inferior. Other headlines include ‘Black Invasion’ - Sunday Post (Sunday 7 May 1961) and ‘Keep Britain White Or Lose Superiority’ – Marylebone Mercury (Friday 15 August 1958)
This historical context of media representation is essential for understanding the current state of health reporting and its influence on public trust. The 1954 article from the Coventry Daily Telegraph serves as a stark reminder of the open promotion of racist notions and fearmongering by mainstream media. Although overt prejudice in the media has been significantly reduced, its legacy continues to influence health reporting and perception, particularly among minority communities.
The 'othering' that was exemplified in the 1954 article has been transformed into more subtle forms of prejudice in contemporary health reporting. For example, certain media outlets may unintentionally perpetuate stereotypes by presenting statistics without sufficient context or analysis of the underlying socioeconomic factors when discussing health disparities. This can result in the belief that specific health issues are innate to specific racial or ethnic groups, rather than the consequence of nuanced societal factors. A strong example of this is an article from The Times titled, ‘Ethnic minorities more likely to catch Covid but survival rate is same’ (2). In this article, South Asian and Black populations higher COVID infection risk was discussed, Reasons attributed for disproportionate infections rates were described as, ‘the greater likelihood of living in larger household sizes comprised of multiple generations; having lower socioeconomic status; and being employed in frontline roles’. This doesn’t fully contextualise the complex systemic factors that actually contribute to health disparities. For example, it doesn’t discuss structural racism or unequal access to healthcare, both of which are key elements that can impact COVID exposure. Similarly, it can be argued that the elevated risks experienced by those in high-density housing and essential workforce positions reflect broader societal constraints rather than personal decisions. The focus on individual choices again placed the onus of health problems away from structural failures and onto the minorities affected most.
Additionally, the historical mistrust that has been engendered by such divisive reporting has established enduring obstacles to healthcare engagement for a significant number of minoritised groups, for example those from Black African and Black Caribbean groups were significantly less likely to take the COVID vaccine (3). This can be argued to demonstrate even well-intentioned health campaigns may not be able to effectively engage and resonate with communities that have been historically marginalised and misrepresented in the media.
An article which has stood out to me demonstrating some failures in health reporting is the one below.
Another article which highlights this is an article (4) from the BBC wrote on the topic of activity levels being lower in South Asian children from a study done in Coventry. This news article can be interpreted to fail at providing an adequate perspective of complex health issues. When reading, it can almost feel reductive in that it reduces the health issues South Asian children face to something as simple as less exercise – it places the onus of health problems upon minority groups instead of investigating the factors inadvertently leading to these problems. While the article presents some useful data on activity disparities and acknowledges some of the cultural factors that can influence the behaviours resulting from these disparities, it also perpetuates some of the media’s failures when reporting about health. This piece relies on some excessive generalisations about South Asian families, it lacks the socioeconomic context needed and frames issues from a deficit-based perspective that can reinforce harmful stereotypes from those inside and outside of these communities. For example, by contrasting "South Asian" with "White European" children, it oversimplifies diverse communities and fails to explore systemic barriers to physical activity or question the cultural appropriateness of health guidelines. This article may provide some useful insights, but it comes at the cost of potentially medicalising cultural differences.
With this specific example, we have begun to see some positive changes in health reporting. The perception of South Asian inactivity has often clouded the conclusion of articles when discussing reasons for higher obesity and diabetes levels. We are beginning to put the pieces together about how obesity is tied to deprived socioeconomic statuses (5). Interestingly, it was also found that people from the Pakistani and Bangladeshi ethnic groups were over three times as likely as White British people to live in the most income-deprived 10% of neighbourhoods. None of this was written about in the initial article but cultural and parental figures were deemed initially responsible.
If we are to adequately address health disparities in minority groups, reporting must become more nuanced by avoiding generalisations and focusing on community strengths alongside challenges.
1. All About Marriage! | Coventry Evening Telegraph | Tuesday 26 October 1954 | British Newspaper Archive [Internet]. [cited 2024 Aug 24]. Available from: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000769/19541026/137/0011
2. Editor KL Health. Ethnic minorities more likely to catch Covid but survival rate is same [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2024 Oct 28]. Available from: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/science/article/ethnic-minorities-more-likely-to-catch-coronavirus-but-chance-of-survival-is-similar-scn9d3ktv
3. Robertson E, Reeve KS, Niedzwiedz CL, Moore J, Blake M, Green M, et al. Predictors of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the UK household longitudinal study. Brain Behav Immun. 2021 May;94:41–50.
4. South Asian children ‘less active’. BBC News [Internet]. 2011 Nov 3 [cited 2024 Aug 28]; Available from: //www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15546463
5. Mayor S. Socioeconomic disadvantage is linked to obesity across generations, UK study finds. BMJ. 2017 Jan 11;356:j163.