Learning Objectives for this Presentation:
By the end of the presentation participants will be able to:
name siginificant pandemic influenza media trends
list current pandemic media messages
discuss historical changes in annual pandemic influenza media coverage


Background:
On part of the on-going media analysis efforts of the National Immunization Program, pandemic influenza messages have been collected and and analyzed to the past 4 years. These stories are obtained from a systematic scanning of newspapers - both domestic and foreign, select radio and television news broadcasts, wire service reports, and selected websites.The data collected during this search is analyzed for content, source of story, country of origin, and other messges variables. The results of this media tracking is presented using both real time and trend statisitics.


Setting:
Over 4,000 newspapers - both domestic and foreign, top U.S. radio and televsion markets, and select websites are scanned on a daily basis to harvest stories on pandemic influenza.


Population:
National and regional U.S. newspapers that are contained in the Lexis/Nexis U.S. news database; radio and television stations that are monitored by Video Monitoring Services; and local and international newspaers that report newspaper stories on their websites.


Project Description:
Public health professional arre provided with a four year analysis of news coverge on pandemic influenza. The peak times of the year, the dominant news messages, and the source of these stories are shown for each year.


Results/Lessons Learned:
There is an apparent seasonal pattern to pandemic influenza news coverage and several messges that the public may have only been recently seen in media coverage have been reported over a number of years with stories about