Newspaper representations of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) and cancer in a Malaysian newspaper

The present study examines newspaper coverage of hand, food and mouth disease (HFMD) and cancer, to compare how infectious and non-infectious diseases are represented in Malaysia. The Health Belief Model was used as the framework for selecting themes relevant to health actions for the content analysis of 69 articles (32,808 words in total) from the New Straits Times. It was found that more emphasis was given to HFMD (51 articles) than to cancer (18 articles). The information most frequently included in the articles was recommended health actions (3.8 mentions per article for HFMD; 1.1 for cancer). The articles represented HFMD as posing a greater threat than cancer, as more information on susceptibility (1.6 for HFMD; 0.3 for cancer) was included compared to severity (0.5 for HFMD; 0.2 for cancer). The HFMD articles stressed the outbreak of HFMD: incidence and deaths, symptoms, causes and preventive measures. However, the cancer articles were usually not incident-specific and focused on promoting a healthy lifestyle to avoid cancer and to warn readers of cancer prevalence. Only 17% of the cancer articles carried treatment themes. The findings suggest that news coverage of cancer should include medical research and advances to create better awareness of cancer.