Rare diseases : information hierarchy and the reader's participation in general and specialised media

Abstract

Do news items about low-prevalence diseases usually appear on covers? How often do they do so? Is there any paper in which any inclination to presents news on RD on the front page can be seen? Can this conduct be extended to any kind of media? The conclusion is that it cannot, as was already pointed out at another part of the study. Low-prevalence diseases seldom manage to get onto the front page of the media, so the newspapers analysed do not reveal any special sensitivity or predisposition to locate information on RD on the cover. There are no preference criteria in the publications leading to the selection of these news items in designing covers or front pages, as is confirmed by the statistical formula: [x2 (38, N= 2443)= 432.192, P<, 0002] in the analysis of the relation existing between both variables.