Health technology assessment and the media: more compatible than one may think?

While the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) community has acknowledged the importance of public and consumer involvement in the HTA process, very few studies have examined how technology-related findings may be reported by the media to the broader public. This paper compares the content of press articles with the content of three Canadian HTA reports that respectively assess electroconvulsive therapy, first-trimester prenatal screening for Down syndrome, and prostate-specific antigen screening for prostate cancer. We qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed 186 press articles addressing the same technologies. Our results show that beyond stylistic emphasis, there is an important overlap between media coverage of these technologies and the content of HTA reports. Findings also highlight shared interests on which both researchers and journalists could build to enhance the communication of health information to the public.