Relationship between Drug Overdose Mortality and Coverage of Drug-Related Issues in US Television Political Campaign Advertising in the 2012 and 2016 Election Cycles.

Context: Understanding the role of drug-related issues in political campaign advertising can provide insight on the salience of this issue and the priorities of candidates for elected office. This study sought to quantify the share of campaign advertising mentioning drugs in the 2012 and 2016 election cycles and to estimate the association between local drug overdose mortality and drug mentions in campaign advertising across US media markets.

Methods: The analysis used descriptive and spatial statistics to examine geographic variation in campaign advertising mentions of drugs across all 210 US media markets, and it used multivariable regression to assess area-level factors associated with that variation.

Findings: The share of campaign ads mentioning drugs grew from 0.5% in the 2012 election cycle to 1.6% in the 2016 cycle. In the 2016 cycle, ads airing in media markets with overdose mortality rates in the 95th percentile were more than three times as likely to mention drugs as ads airing in areas with overdose mortality rates in the 5th percentile.

Conclusions: A small proportion of campaign advertising mentioned drug-related issues. In the 2016 cycle, the issue was more prominent in advertising in areas hardest hit by the drug overdose crisis and in advertising for local races.