The impact of COVID-19-related changes in media consumption on public knowledge: results of a cross-sectional survey of Pennsylvania adults

Abstract

Objective

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans have increasingly relied on internet versus television news. The extent to which this change in health news consumption practice impacts health knowledge is not known. This study investigates the relationship between most trusted information source and COVID-19 knowledge.

Methods

A cross-sectional online survey was sent to a convenience sample from a list of adults on a central Pennsylvania health system’s marketing database 25–31 March 2020. Respondents were grouped by their trusted news sources and comparison of respondent COVID-19 knowledge was made between these groups for 5948 respondents.

Results

Those who selected government health websites as their most trusted source were more likely to answer COVID-19 questions correctly than those who selected other internet news sources or television news (OR 1.21, p < .05; 1.08, p > .05; and 0.87, p < .05, respectively). Those who used Facebook as an additional source of news in any way were less likely to answer COVID-19 questions correctly than those who did not (OR 0.93, p < .05).

Conclusions

COVID-19 knowledge correlates with trusted news source. To increase public knowledge of COVID-19 in order to maximize information dissemination and compliance with COVID-19-related public health recommendations, those who provide health information should consider use of the public’s most trusted sources of information, as well as monitoring and correcting misinformation presented by other sources. Independent content review for accuracy in media may be warranted in public health emergencies to improve knowledge.

Keywords:

• Health communication
• COVID-19
• news
• social media
• pandemic

Transparency

Declaration of funding

Funding was provided by the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences and the Social Science Research Institute of Pennsylvania State University (under Grant 7601), and the Pennsylvania State College of Medicine Department of Family and Community Medicine (DFCM) (under Grant 7601-M). The DFCM faculty was involved in study design and manuscript production. No other funders were involved in data collection, analysis, interpretation or any aspect of manuscript production.

Declaration of financial/other relationships

S.M.S. and J.C.G. have disclosed that they are medical students at Penn State College of Medicine. L.J.V.S., E.L.M., B.S., E.W., V.M.C. and R.P.L. have disclosed that they are employees of Penn State College of Medicine. CMRO peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Author contributions

Conception and design: R.P.L., L.J.V.S., E.L.M., B.S. Analysis and interpretation: R.P.L., E.W., V.M.C., S.M.S. Drafting or revising for intellectual content: S.M.S., R.P.L., E.W. Final approval: S.M.S., L.J.V.S., J.C.G., E.L.M., B.S., E.W., V.M.C., R.P.L. All authors agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Acknowledgements

Without the assistance of the following individuals and groups, the scope and scale of this project would not have been possible. We thank Stacy Beers, Amy Peiffer and the Penn State Health and Penn State College of Medicine Marketing teams, Susan Chobanoff, Neal Thomas, Leslie Parent, Sarah Bronson, Heather Stuckey-Peyrot and the Penn State Qualitative Mixed Methods Core.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, R.P.L., upon reasonable request.

Notes

i Facebook is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc., Menlo Park, CA, USA.

ii Plaquenil is a registered trademark of Concordia Pharmaceuticals Inc., Luxembourg city, Luxembourg.