ReviewDrug and alcohol review2022
Print and online textual news media coverage of UK low-risk drinking guidelines from 2014 to 2017: A review and thematic analysis.
Review in Drug and alcohol review, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Changing public perceptions of alcohol, alcohol harms and alcohol policies: A multi-methods study to develop novel framing approaches.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2025Article
- Comparing public health-related material in print and web page versions of legacy media.JAMIA open · 2024Article
- Review
- Trends in Public Awareness and Knowledge of Drinking Guidelines: a Representative Population Survey in England, 2016-2022.Alcohol and alcoholism (Oxford, Oxfordshire) · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
introductionThe UK low-risk drinking guidelines were revised in 2016. Drinkers were primarily informed about the guidelines via news media, but little is known about this coverage. This study investigated the scale and content of print and online textual news media coverage of drinking guidelines in England from February 2014 to October 2017.
methodsWe searched the Nexis database and two leading broadcasters' websites (BBC and Sky) for articles mentioning the guidelines. We randomly selected 500 articles to code for reporting date, accuracy, tone, context and purpose of mentioning the guidelines, and among these, thematically analysed 200 randomly selected articles.
resultsArticles mentioned the guidelines regularly. Reporting peaked when the guidelines revision was announced (7.4% of articles). The most common type of mention was within health- or alcohol-related articles and neutral in tone (70.8%). The second most common was in articles discussing the guidelines' strengths and weaknesses, which were typically negative (14.8%). Critics discredited the guidelines' scientific basis by highlighting conflicting evidence and arguing that guideline developers acted politically. They also questioned the ethics of limiting personal autonomy to improve public health. Criticisms were partially facilitated by announcing the guidelines alongside a 'no safe level of drinking' message, and wider discourse misrepresenting the guidelines as rules, and highlighting apparent inconsistencies with standalone scientific papers and international guidelines. DISCUSSION AND
conclusionsNews media generally covered drinking guidelines in a neutral and accurate manner, but in-depth coverage was often negative and sought to discredit the guidelines using scientific and ethical arguments.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.