Arthritis in the national TV news: 1971-1981.

Millions of Americans get virtually all of their current events information from the national nightly television news programs. The purpose of this study was to learn via the Vanderbilt Television News Archives what arthritis-related information had been broadcast over the last 11 years by the network news programs. In the last 11 years there have been 23 arthritis-related news segments. In comparison there were 32 about diabetes, 215 about heart diseases, and 925 dealing with cancer. A compilation of the non-overlapping segments has been shown to health professionals and patients, who felt the stories were generally accurate.