HPH NOW, April 14, 2006, Hollywood Writers Learn Ways to Incorporate Public Health Messages into Scripts

Studies have suggested that Americans often learn about public health and medicine not through their doctors, but by watching TV. But where do TV writers get their inspiration? How can researchers ensure that public health messages are accurately and appropriately portrayed?

iStockphoto.com/Linda Bucklin

One effort is Hollywood, Health & Society, a program at the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center that provides writers with topical and accurate information for plotlines. Recently, the program, funded by the CDC and the National Cancer Institute, tapped HSPH Professor David Hemenway to participate in a panel on unnecessary deaths from violence and disease in the U.S. He spoke to Society members and to the Writers Guild of America West in Los Angeles in February.

Hemenway focused on youth and violence, surprising the writers with findings that he and his colleagues at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center have identified, such as the U.S. overall violent crime rate is actually similar to that of other industrialized nations-but the U.S. has much higher gun homicide rates. Or, white males are far more likely to be victims of gun suicide than black or Hispanic males, although the latter groups are more likely to be victims of gun homicide.

Hollywood, Health & Society became aware of Hemenway's work through Jay Winsten, Associate Dean for Public and Community Affairs at HSPH. Winsten heads the HSPH Center for Health Communication, which worked with major Hollywood studios and television networks to raise awareness about the designated driver campaign and has since then advanced national media campaigns on youth violence prevention, healthy aging, and mentoring. Last fall, Winsten hosted Neal Baer, co-chair of the Society's Advisory Board, who delivered a talk on health messages in prime-time TV. A pediatrician and HMS alumnus, Baer is an executive producer on Law & Order: SVU.

Before the panel presentation, Hemenway made presentations to the staff writers at Law & Order: SVU, as well as the writers at ER, CSI: Miami, and the new show Conviction.

Surveys conducted in 1999 and 2000 by the company Porter Novelli found that more than half of prime time and daytime drama viewers said that they had learned about an aspect of a disease or how to prevent it from a television show. Neal Baer co-authored a study in Health Affairs that suggested that viewers of ER retained some information about health messages, further demonstrating the influence of TV.