Faith, hype, and charity
BMJ 2012; 344 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.e317 (Published 11 January 2012) Cite this as: BMJ 2012;344:e317
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Faith, hype and charity
Hawkes1 expresses concern of blindly echoing provided information by charities, which applies to other resources as well.
Whether one is dealing with charities, media, law, complaints, research, appraisals, patient treatment, management or service delivery it is always essential to get objectified evidence from as much as possible unbiased resources and to differentiate fact from fiction and subjective views. This is a complex multidimensional matter, whereby context can play a significant role and one has to take caution not to overgeneralise findings. Responses to information presented can vary from ignoring, dismissing to blind acceptance. A culture that promotes a critical outlook on what has been described can reduce the risk of accepting the unfounded. Searching for evidence can be a minefield of all kind of bias i.e. the population studied, randomisation, positivism/qualitative information gathering. Every scientific journal regularly hammers on the pitfalls of closed questions, restricted study populations and of recent there have been a few articles in the BMJ on investments in surrogate findings which have not proven to influence the disease. One should always try to deconstruct information, particularly when spontaneously provided and avoid to be led astray by ‘face value’. Hidden agendas can easily be missed and false claims can instigate strayed investments. Unfounded claims are potential self- destructive trouble makers such as research fraud, slander, defamation of character and other harm, which can be a quest for an inquiry. On the other hand comprehensive accounts that describe the sources and findings concretely and specifically with cautious interpretations and reference to implications can have the potential of essential clues for more focussed and in depth examination in service of upgraded data.
1. BMJ 2012;344:e31
Ruth Brand Flu,
Amazonicalpha@aol.com
Competing interests: No competing interests
Who does the surveys? Is it the charities themselves, or professional research companies?
Margaret McCarney's article (BMJ 2011;343:d7802, doi:10.1136/bmj.d7802) says that the Barnardo's survey was commissioned. I suspect that most surveys done by charities to support marketing are commissioned.
Obviously charities are responsible for what they say, whoever does the surveys. But, I can imagine that a charity driven by the need to raise money is a soft target for a "research" company that can promise to deliver "facts" that will increase their income.
Do companies that do surveys commercially have a code of ethics, or a standard of conduct, or a professional body?
Competing interests: No competing interests
Re: Faith, hype, and charity
Government misrepresentation and garbled health promotion messages
Hawkes is right: charities should not issue press releases making claims based on surveys, without making it possible for anyone to find out the full details of those surveys.[1] They could start by always making their press releases accessible to the public – something the Department of Health for England does not always do in its health promotion work.[2] Funnily enough, I only encountered the issue of the department’s hidden press releases because I wanted to discover more about a survey of physical activity it had apparently commissioned, one cited in simultaneous media reports.
I am not sure we should pay much attention to any public health news story where the department uses a new survey to interest the media when in another instance the department itself says to a journalist that the relevant survey was just a “fun talking point”.[3] In fact, it is worse than that: use of a survey in that particular story involves serious misrepresentation and leads to garbled messages for the public on health-related behaviour. That the department’s press release is available to the public [4] means we can be certain that the media reports [3] [5] have not misinterpreted and/or misrepresented it.
The survey concerned “the top 20 children’s programmes and characters shown on UK TV channels in November and December 2010”. Each character was rated on their “activity levels”. These ratings are in turn used to produce two rankings: one of programmes and the other of individual characters. The most active character is ‘Sportacus’, from the programme ‘LazyTown’. The press release says: “New research out today has revealed that ‘Sportacus’ is the healthiest children’s character on UK television.” Note how “most active” has become “healthiest”. Similarly, the headlines for both media reports use “healthiest” – but in relation to ‘Scooby Doo’, the survey’s most active programme. Back to ‘Sportacus’: the press release tells us he is partnering Change4Life, the government’s “social marketing” programme, “to inspire children around the country to ditch their junk food and tuck into more ‘Sports Candy’ [the term ‘LazyTown’ uses for fruit and vegetables]”. This new partnership will get young children and their parents “eating well and being active”. Here then it suits the department to misrepresent the survey’s most active character, ‘Sportacus’, as the healthiest. Further garbling of the messages for the public arises because both journalists are understandably distracted by the unhealthy snacking habits of the second most active (sorry, healthiest) character, ‘Scooby Doo’.
The public surely deserve more careful communication of health promotion messages from government than this.
References
1 Hawkes N. Faith, hype, and charity. ‘BMJ’ 2012;344:e317. (11 January.)
2 May ACW. Press releases for government obesity campaign are hidden. ‘BMJ’ 2011;343:d7211. (15 November.)
3 Beckford M. Scooby Doo is healthiest cartoon, says Department of Health. ‘Daily Telegraph’ 2011 September 13. www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8760387/Scooby-Doo-is-healthiest-c....
4 Department of Health for England. Change4Life and Sportacus tackle our lazy towns. Press release 2011 September 13. mediacentre.dh.gov.uk/2011/09/13/change4life-sportacus-tackle-lazy-towns.
5 Finighan G. Scooby Doo is the ‘healthiest’ cartoon says Government… even though it features a dog who loves pigging out on snacks. ‘Daily Mail’ 2011 September 14. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2037049/Scooby-Doo-healthiest-cartoon-s....
Competing interests: No competing interests