Abstract
Aim
Overdiagnosis has become a major concern with the widespread use of screening tests, leading to unnecessary treatments and financial damage. However, the concept of overdiagnosis is difficult to convey to the public, and misinformation may be prevalent, especially through online platforms. This study aimed to analyze the news media and YouTube content related to overdiagnosis to determine the current state of misinformation and to provide a basis for controlling overdiagnosis-related information provision.
Methods
News articles were collected from ten media outlets and three broadcast media, while YouTube videos (published in 2005–2022) with over a thousand views were selected using the keyword “geom**” (health screening). LDA topic modeling was used to examine the news data, and the chi-square test was performed to analyze the differences in video content by source.
Results
The analysis of 268 YouTube videos showed that more than 75% of the videos recommended necessary screening. However, recommendation of screening despite insufficient evidence was found in 43.3% of all videos and showed a particularly high rate among the videos published by individual medical professionals or medical institutions (p < 0.001). Among the videos promoting screenings, 38.8% also recommended screenings to age groups that are not shown to benefit from them. In the news articles, the topic with the highest proportion (29.2%) was the “necessity of extensive and comprehensive health screening.”
Conclusion
The prevalence of excessive recommendations by healthcare professionals through news and YouTube in Korea highlights the need for communicating accurate medical information and effective policies to prevent overdiagnosis.
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Data available on request.
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Funding
This study was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Cancer Research and Control from the National Cancer Center of Korea (#2210250–1).
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All authors conceived and designed the analysis. Data collection was carried out by EKK and SK. EKK, HRJ, and JC contributed to the data or provided analysis tools. The analysis was performed by EKK, HRJ, and JC. The paper was written by all authors, and all authors supervised and revised the manuscript.
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EunKyo Kang and HyoRim Ju contributed equally to this work as first authors.
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Kang, E., Ju, H., Kim, S. et al. Excessive recommendations on health screening in Korea: analysis of news media and Youtube content related to overdiagnosis. J Public Health (Berl.) (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-023-02182-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-023-02182-y