Abstract:
Ghana and Cameroon face a growing burden of chronic noncommunicable
diseases (NCDs). In both countries lay communities draw
on multiple social sources for NCD knowledge, including the mass media.
Information content, accuracy and usefulness differ across sources. This
study examined the sources and contents of NCD articles in the Ghanaian
Mirror and the Cameroonian tribune over two theoretically significant
periods: June 1999 – June 2000 and June 2009 - June 2010. Analysis
showed that: (1) in both countries the volume of newspaper reporting on
NCDs increased across the two time periods; (2) Cameroon had a weaker
culture of chronic disease reporting; (3) in Ghana, six major NCDs were
represented, however a quarter of articles were plagiarised from foreign
websites; (4) the politics of health funding and policies influenced media
health reporting. These findings are discussed and the implications for the
future role of newspapers in NCD education are outlined.