ArticlePloS one2016
Exaggerations and Caveats in Press Releases and Health-Related Science News.
Article in PloS one, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 49 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
49 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Quality of information in news media reports about the effects of health interventions: Systematic review and meta-analyses.F1000Research · 2021Pooled it
- Artificial intelligence versus clinicians: systematic review of design, reporting standards, and claims of deep learning studies.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2020Pooled it
- Who can you trust? A review of free online sources of "trustworthy" information about treatment effects for patients and the public.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2019Pooled it
- Trial
- Claims of causality in health news: a randomised trial.BMC medicine · 2019Trial
- When machines misread science: creating guardrails for human and AI interpretation of biomedical research.NPJ digital medicine · 2026Article
- Improving science literacy in the newsroom: Experimental evidence.PNAS nexus · 2026Article
- Press release guide for genomic research and medicine: a framework co-developed with public contributors in Japan.Journal of human genetics · 2026Article
- An open dataset of EurekAlert! press releases for science communication research.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Contested science communication: Representations of scientists and their science in newspaper articles and the associated comment sections.Public understanding of science (Bristol, England) · 2025Article
- Regional disparities in US media coverage of archaeology research.Science advances · 2025Article
- Numerate people are less likely to be biased by regular science reporting: the critical roles of scientific reasoning and causal misunderstanding.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2025Article
- Caught in the Web of Words: Do LLMs Fall for Spin in Medical Literature?Proceedings of machine learning research · 2025Article
- [3D printing in surgery: relevance of technology maturity assessment in bioprinting research studies].Chirurgie (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2025Review
- Generalization bias in large language model summarization of scientific research.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- How publishers can fight misinformation in and about science and medicine.Nature medicine · 2023Article
- Effective communications strategies to increase the impact of environmental health research.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2023Article
- Irish Media Coverage of COVID-19 Evidence-Based Research Reports From One National Agency.International journal of health policy and management · 2022Article
- What the Neuroscience and Psychology of Magic Reveal about Misinformation.Publications (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Resveratrol and Wine: An Overview of Thirty Years in the Digital News.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundExaggerated or simplistic news is often blamed for adversely influencing public health. However, recent findings suggested many exaggerations were already present in university press releases, which scientists approve. Surprisingly, these exaggerations were not associated with more news coverage. Here we test whether these two controversial results also arise in press releases from prominent science and medical journals. We then investigate the influence of mitigating caveats in press releases, to test assumptions that caveats harm news interest or are ignored. METHODS AND
findingsUsing quantitative content analysis, we analyzed press releases (N = 534) on biomedical and health-related science issued by leading peer-reviewed journals. We similarly analysed the associated peer-reviewed papers (N = 534) and news stories (N = 582). Main outcome measures were advice to readers and causal statements drawn from correlational research. Exaggerations in press releases predicted exaggerations in news (odds ratios 2.4 and 10.9, 95% CIs 1.3 to 4.5 and 3.9 to 30.1) but were not associated with increased news coverage, consistent with previous findings. Combining datasets from universities and journals (996 press releases, 1250 news), we found that when caveats appeared in press releases there was no reduction in journalistic uptake, but there was a clear increase in caveats in news (odds ratios 9.6 and 9.5 for caveats for advice and causal claims, CIs 4.1 to 24.3 and 6.0 to 15.2). The main study limitation is its retrospective correlational nature.
conclusionsFor health and science news directly inspired by press releases, the main source of both exaggerations and caveats appears to be the press release itself. However we find no evidence that exaggerations increase, or caveats decrease, the likelihood of news coverage. These findings should be encouraging for press officers and scientists who wish to minimise exaggeration and include caveats in their press releases.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.