Health in the News is not the Health News

The media distorts the nature of our country’s challenges, especially those pertaining to our public health. One of those challenges is what the government calls “homicide by discharge of firearms.” While it is a more prevalent cause of death for certain demographic groups (I will use age as an example), firearms homicide is far from the predominant cause of death in society as a whole. When it comes to protecting the life and health of our citizens, several other health issues are much more important than firearms homicide. My intention here is not to defend guns as much as shed light on how the media emphases different public health issues disproportionately to the issues' true effects on society.

Here is the CDC’s list of the leading American causes of death for 2005 (all statistics in this article are from 2005):

Top Death Causes (Actual #) (% of Total)
All causes (2,448,017) (100.0)
Cardiovascular disease (856,030) (35.0)
Cancer (559,312) (22.8)
Cerebrovascular diseases (143,579) (5.9)
Chronic lower respiratory diseases (130,933) (5.3)
Diabetes mellitus (75,119) (3.1)
Alzheimer's disease (71,599) (2.9)
Non-transportation accidents (69,368) (2.8)
Influenza and pneumonia (63,001) (2.6)
Motor vehicle accidents (45,343) (1.9)
Kidney failure (42,868) (1.8)
Infection (34,136) (1.4)
Suicide (32,637) (1.3)
Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis (27,530) (1.1)
Hypertension / hypertensive renal disease (24,902) (1.0)
Parkinson's disease (19,544) (0.8)
Lung Tissue Inflammation (17,129) (0.7)
Human immunodeficiency virus (12,543) (0.5)
Homicide by discharge of firearms (12,352) (0.5)

Granted, the above data is for the entire population and is skewed toward natural causes and disease because of the inclusion of the elderly.

However, if we isolate the age group with the highest number of firearms homicide victims, firearms homicide is still far from the number one cause of death. Just as the general population numbers are skewed by the elderly against firearms homicide, the numbers for ages 15-24 are skewed in favor of firearms homicide (plus auto and other accidents) because of this group’s superior overall physical health and lack of world experience. In plain language, when people between the ages of 15 and 24 die, it is least likely from natural causes and most likely from their own stupidity.

Top Death Causes Ages 15-24 (Actual #) (% of Group)
All causes (34,234) (100)
Motor vehicle accidents (10,908) (31.9)
Homicide by discharge of firearms (4,499) (13.1)
Non-transportation accidents (4,465) (13.0)
Suicide (4,212) (12.3)
Cancer (1,717) (5.0)

This 15-24 age group is an extreme example. While the number of firearm homicides is unacceptably high for this age group, where is the outcry over the number of deaths from motor vehicle accidents? While a discussion about outlawing cars would be absurd, why is there not a similar (let alone a greater)media lust for traffic safety as there is for gun control? Why is it that motor vehicle accidents kill twice as many people as firearm homicide, yet the latter is hyped up in the news while the former is not?

To put it in perspective, let us look at an age group that 1) eliminates the very young and very old outliers and 2) has the firearm homicide death rate (4.6 per 100,000) closest to the firearm homicide death rate for the entire population (4.2 per 100,000). That age group is 35-44.

Top Death Causes Ages 35-44 (Actual #) (% of Group)
All causes (84,785) (100)
Cardiovascular disease (15,852) (18.7)
Cancer (14,566) (17.2)
Non-transportation accidents (9,624) (11.3)
Motor vehicle accidents (6,748) (8.0)
Suicide (6,550) (7.7)
Human immunodeficiency virus (4,363) (5.2)
Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis (2,688) (3.2)
Diabetes mellitus (2,045) (2.4)
Homicide by discharge of firearms (2,010) (2.4)

Going by the statistics for this demographic group, if the primary motivation of the media was the welfare of Americans, then there would be over three times as many stories in the national news about traffic safety as there were about firearm homicide. There would also be three times as many stories about suicide as there were about firearm homicide. One would think there might be at least twice as many (let alone eight times as many) stories about cardiovascular disease as there were about firearm homicide.

It is pretty safe to say that is not the case.

It would seem that the media is less motivated by the health, safety, and well-being of the American people than it is motivated by a hatred of guns.

Here is one last point, to emphasize that I am not defending gun violence but attacking what the media chooses to emphasize. During the darkest days of the Iraq war, the media howled incessantly about our soldiers dying in Iraq, while a much worse slaughter was happening here at home. In 2005, 673 Americans were killed in action in Iraq, while 18,124 Americans (27 times that number) were firearms homicide victims here at home. Relying on the media, one would not have realized that.

The lesson here is, when it comes to health news (and all news in general), view the stories that the media chooses and thus emphasizes with a great deal of skepticism.


Sources
Kung HC, Hoyert DL, Xu JQ, Murphy SL. Deaths: Final data for 2005. National vital statistics reports; vol 56 no 10. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2008. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_10.pdf Accessed 4/25/09

United States Department of Defense. Global War on Terrorism - Operation Iraqi Freedom
By Month http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/CASUALTY/oif-total-by-month.pdf Accessed 4/26/09