Television: A Reliable Source of Health Information? A Critical Review

This essay examines the role of television as a source of health information, acknowledging that while clinicians are primary sources, television and the internet also play significant roles. It explores how individuals seek health information from various sources like the internet, books, and newspapers, highlighting television's popularity through medical talks and its influence on knowledge levels, particularly among those with lower literacy levels. The essay references studies on information appraisal, seeking behaviors, and acceptance, including a longitudinal study on nutrition knowledge gained from television. It also considers television's passive role and the use of various modalities, such as documentaries and advertisements, in disseminating health information. The paper cites several studies and articles to support its analysis of the impact of television on health information acquisition and its implications for public health.

“Television is a good source of health information”
Although clinicians are the main and most trusted source of health information and support, but
television, and Internet are also considered as sources of supplement health information (Fox &
Duggan, 2013). Seeking any kind of health information is mainly related to positive outcomes
for example discussing results with physician, knowledge about medial options as well as
treatment adherence (Cutilli, 2010). There are various sources of health information which
provide excellent information related to health and amongst them few very common ones are
Internet, television, books, magazines and newspapers etc. (Anker et al., 2011 ).
In a study that explored the manner in which health information sources impact the decision
making amongst Hispanic mothers during the first 1000 days of their children , it was found
that amongst the trusted health information service providers along with health care providers,
male and female family members , other Internet sources , television was also there (Criss et al.,
2015). That is why television medical talks are becoming much popular source of health
information. The reason being through a particular process the people have started
unconditionally accepting the information which is presented to them in such shows. In a study
conducted on 588 South Korean women , using the Heuristic Systematic Model (HSM), the
connection between information appraisals, information behaviors , information exposure as
well as unconditional acceptance of health information was studies. The study indicated that
both kinds of information appraisals are linked with information seeking, which in turn is related
negatively with unconditional acceptance of information (Jeong & Lee, 2017 ).
In a longitudinal study conducted on 300 respondents to find out the impact on the level of
knowledge about nutrition related to a specially developed television programme , it showed
that knowledge levels increased amongst all the groups after watching the programme. Thus
generally it can be said that the television media users indicate higher levels of health knowledge
as compared to non-user counterparts. Both television as well as newspapers is considered to be
critical and important sources of health information (Feinberg et al., 2015).
During their life stages most of the people try and gather health advice from the television
shows. However, the most offered health information source for patients is to get personalized

written information from the health care providers (Shea-Budgell et al., 2014). Thus television
along with radio is considered to be ubiquitous source of passive information which is very
widely accessible to most of the people around the world. Within this medium of information,
health information is being shared with the help of various modalities that include
documentaries, paid advertisements, and educational entertainment and public service
announcements. It has been found that Blacks having lower proficiency levels use television as
source of health information across all the domains. Most of the adults acquire health
information in passive manner from television in the form of unintentional outcomes of just
leaving their television on during the entire day or they might prefer to watch educational
entertainment shows which are focusing on lethal related topics (Longo et al., 2010).

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