1997 Kaiser Media Fellows Selected

For Immediate Release: June 5, 1997Contacts: Tina Hoff — (415) 854-9400 ext. 108

Menlo Park, California — Six journalists have been selected as 1997 Kaiser Media fellows, in the fifth year of an annual fellowship program for health reporters sponsored by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The journalists, whose selection was announced today, will start their fellowships projects in September 1997.

1997 Kaiser Media fellows:

Debra Gordon, medical writer, The Virginian-Pilot

Project: Community coalitions–tracking grass root efforts to address child and maternal health problems

Jon Hamilton, freelance health policy writer

Project: An in-depth look at states that have implemented experimental Medicaid managed care programs

Leslie Laurence, syndicated health columnist, and writer, Glamour magazine

Project: The impact of urban hospital closings on local communities

Christopher Ringwald, demographics/mental health reporter, The (Albany) Times Union

Project: The challenges and debate facing alcoholism and addiction treatment programs–what works, why, and how to measure results

Joanne Silberner, health policy correspondent, National Public Radio

Project: How public health research becomes health policy–from academia to the streets

Tammie Smith, health reporter, The Tennessean

Project: How the major black colleges in the U.S. are faring in a changing health care environment–focused on Howard, Meharry, Morehouse, and Drew

The Kaiser Media Fellowships Program provides health journalists with a highly flexible range of opportunities to pursue in-depth projects related to health policy, healthcare financing and public health issues. There is no obligation to be based at an academic institution, and no bar on fellows continuing to report for publication or TV/radio production during their fellowship.

The Program gives fellows time and travel opportunities to research specific topics, to broaden their perspectives, and deepen understanding of health policy, health financing and public health issues. The purpose is to help journalists improve the quality of the work they do–to enhance their ability to explain the complex ethical, economic, medical and political aspects involved in their reporting on health issues.

In addition to working on their individual projects, fellows meet as a group five times during the year and participate in a series of program seminars and site visits, in part designed by the fellows. These vary widely in focus, location and in the range of participants. In January 1997, the current fellows met for a three-day program on computer-assisted health reporting at the Poynter Institute, followed by a four-day sitevisit to Miami with briefings on various immigration and public health issues. The next fellowship site visit in August 1997 to Portland, Oregon, will focus on longterm care and end-of life issues.

Fellows are awarded a basic stipend of $45,000 for a twelve-month period, plus travel expenses. In 1998, six fellowships will again be awarded to print, television, and radio health reporters, commentators, editors and producers. Applications for 1998 will be available shortly, for submission by March 1998. For further information, or to apply for the 1998 awards, contact Penny Duckham, executive director of the fellowships program, at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 2400 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025 (Tel: 415-854-9400; fax: 415-854-4800; e-mail: pduckham@kff.org).

The Kaiser Family Foundation is an independent health care foundation and is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente or Kaiser Industries.

Kaiser Media Fellows

Fellows are selected by a national advisory committee:

Hale Champion (chair)

Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Paul Delaney

Editorial Page Editor, Our World News

Anne Gudenkauf

Senior Editor, Science Desk, National Public Radio

Timothy Johnson, M.D.

Medical Editor, ABC News

Eileen Shanahan

Washington Correspondent, New America News Service

1996 Media Fellows

Lisa Aliferis, producer, KPIX-TV (San Francisco)

Project: Death and dying–focus includes hospice care, physician assisted suicide, and differences in cultural perspectives

Susan FitzGerald, medical writer, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Project: Children’s health issues: growing up in the inner-city

Samuel Orozco, news/satellite director, Radio Bilingue

Project: Mental health issues facing Latino immigrants in the U.S.

Eugene Richards, photo-journalist and author

Project: The consequences of child abuse

Joseph P. Shapiro, senior editor, U.S. News & World Report

Project: Long-term care–creating a system of care that is safe, appropriate, affordable, and maximizes independence

Mark Taylor, health reporter, Post-Tribune (Gary, Indiana)

Project: The impact of state and federal legislation on healthcare for disadvantaged populations

1995 Media Fellows

Chris Adams, reporter, The Times-Picayune (New Orleans)

Project: The impact of the for-profit hospital chains in the changing medical marketplace.

Leon Dash, reporter, The Washington Post

Project: Six generations of underclass life in a family.

Jonathan Freedman, author, columnist; regular contributor, Los Angeles Times Commentary Page

Project/s: Comprehensive child-development programs: a television documentary profiling families who overcome poverty; a book on prostate cancer

Judith Graham, business writer, The Denver Post

Project: The restructuring of the health care industry

Lani Luciano, staff writer, Money magazine

Project: Medical quality measures–how real, how useful, how welcome?

Patricia Neighmond, health policy correspondent, National Public Radio

Project: Managed care–its implications for patients and their doctors

1994 Media Fellows

Jeanne Blake, documentary producer and author

Project: Sexuality and the threat of HIV to young people

Janet Firshein, Editor, Medicine & Health

Project: Training more primary care doctors–the challenge facing the nation’s medical schools and academic health centers

Carol Gentry, medical writer, St. Petersburg Times

Project: Managed care and HMOs–the impact on the care doctors provide and patients receive

Angela Mitchell, freelance writer and author

Project: African-Americans and the AIDS epidemic

Rita Rubin, associate editor, U.S. News & World Report

Project: An examination of the appropriateness of care given to women

Steve Sternberg, freelance health policy writer

Project: The implications–medical, legal and societal–of emerging infectious diseases

1993 Media Fellows

Lisa Belkin, healthcare reporter, The New York Times

Project: Family practice in inner-cities–examining innovative strategies for recruiting and retaining family doctors in U.S. inner-cities

Mary Flannery, health/medical reporter, The Philadelphia Daily News

Project: The provision of day treatment programs for adults with mental illness–primarily focused on the clubhouse model at Fountain House in New York, and its effectiveness as a treatment option for other U.S. cities

Julie Kosterlitz, Contributing Editor, The National Journal

Project: The Clinton health reform plan–an in-depth analysis of the issues, the legislation, the political process, the results

Linda Roach Monroe, health and medicine reporter, The Miami Herald

Project: Cultural barriers to medical care in the U.S., and the implications for medical providers and others (including the media), starting with Hispanic communities

Rebecca Perl, science desk, National Public Radio

Project: Smoking and health–advertising, marketing and lobbying activities of the U.S. tobacco industry, nationally and internationally, and their impact and future implications for specific populations and target groups

Stuart Schear, health/science reporter, The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Project: Issues in health reform beyond the legislative process: the implications of moving toward managed care and competition for patients, practitioners, administrators, and providers

• Report:

A Review of the Waiver Applications, Letters of Approval and Special Terms and Conditions

This background paper provides a summary of the key features of the Medicaid 1115 waivers that have been approved, proposed, implemented and conditionally rejected. This July version updates Medicaid 1115 Demonstration Waivers: Approved and Proposed Activities as of February 1995, as well as policy briefs on Medicaid waivers released in August and November of 1994.

• Report: Statewide Medicaid Managed Care Demonstrations under Section 115 of the Social Security Act:

This publication is a resource manual for health care providers to increase awareness and access to emergency contraception to women by making available information about emergency contraception, and how to use this option.

• Emergency Contraception: Resources for Providers

This report has been prepared for the Kaiser Commission on the Future of Medicaid as part of the Urban Institute’s ongoing analytic work for the Commission.

• Report:

• Report: Medicare/Medicaid Dual Eligibles: Fiscal And Social Responsibility For Vulnerable Populations

The April 1997 edition of the Kaiser FamilyFoundation/Harvard Health News Index includes questions about major health issues covered in the news, including questions about Late-Term Abortions, the Morning After Pills and the Tobacco Industry. The survey also features public knowledge of when women think mammogram screenings should begin. The survey is based on a national random sample of 1,1015 Americans conducted April 4-8, 1997 which measures public knowledge of health stories covered by news media during the previous month. The Health News Index is designed to help the news media and people in the health field gain a better understanding of which health stories in the news Americans are following and what they understand about those health issues. Every two months Kaiser/Harvard issues a new index report.

This commentary reviews Medicaid’s role for low-income women and examines the implications Medicaid managed care on the delivery of health services to this vulnerable population. Today 40% of the Medicaid population, mostly poor women and their children, is enrolled in managed care. Medicaid agencies are hoping managed care will control spending and address longstanding problems with access to care. Low-income women have a number of characteristics that make them doubly vulnerable to have trouble accessing care and place them at high risk for health problems. Furthermore, many beneficiaries have historically experienced non-financial barriers to care under fee-for-service Medicaid. While many look to managed care to overcome these obstacles, the evidence suggests that it does not offer a great improvement over fee-for-service in terms of improved access or reduced long term costs for low-income women. For Medicaid managed care to realize its potential, it will be crucial to assure that financing is adequate, resources for monitoring and oversight are sufficient, and systems and benefits are responsive to the complex and diverse health care needs of low-income women.

This article, written by Alina Salganicoff, appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Women’s Association, Vol.52, no.2, 1997.

• Fact Sheet: Facts About Emergency Contraception

Solving Problems and Achieving Goals

Problem solving and achieving goals were examined in relation to the television and moviecharacters and as information provided in the magazine articles (Table 10). Both male and femalecharacters most often rely upon themselves to solve their problems and achieve their goals. In thetelevision shows about a third of the men (32%) and women (35%) solved their own problems, while inthe movies, almost half of the men (49%) and more than a third of the women (35%) solved their ownproblems. In regard to achieving goals, about four out of ten of the men (38%) and women (39%) inthese television shows and more than six out of ten of the men (67%) and women (62%) in the movieswere self-sufficient.

After relying on themselves, both men and women characters turn to other friends andacquaintances for help. About two in ten of women on television (20%) and in films (23%) relied on amale friend or acquaintance, and 20 percent of women on television and 31 percent of women in filmsrelied on a female friend or acquaintance to help them solve problems. Similarly, around a quarter ofmen on television (23%) and in films (29%) rely on a male friend or acquaintance, while fewer men(16% on television and 11% in film) rely on a female friend to help them solve their problems.

Table 10: Percent of Women and Men Who Rely on Each Source to Solve Their Problems and Achieve Their Goals in Television and Films, and the Percent of Magazine Articles that Mention Each Source to Rely on TelevisionCharacters FilmCharacters MagazineArticles Rely on to Solve Problems: Women(109) Men(133) Women(26) Men(45) Articles(378) Self 35% 32% 35% 49% 28% Mother 6 2 4 4 6 Father 6 1 15 4 3 Women 20 16 31 11 1 Men 20 23 23 29 2 Female-Romantic 3 8 4 16 2 Male-Romantic 12 0 23 0 1 Rely on to Achieve Goals: Self 39% 38% 62% 67% NA Mother 1 1 4 4 NA Father 2 2 8 4 NA Women 14 14 46 16 NA Men 9 21 23 47 NA Female-Romantic 2 8 8 11 NA Male-Romantic 9 0 31 0 NA Note: Bolded pairs of number indicate that the differences between the percent for women and men is statistically significant at pTwelve percent of women rely on their male romantic partner to help them solve problems and9 percent to help them achieve their goals. Eight percent of men rely on their female romantic partnerto solve their problems and to achieve their goals. These patterns were also seen in the movies, wherealmost a third of the women (31%) rely upon their male romantic partners to achieve their goals whereas only 11 percent of men relied upon their female romantic partners (Table 10).

The magazine articles stress relying on oneself to solve problems–more than a quarter of thesearticles (28%) implied that the reader should solve her problems herself. These articles presentedmothers (6%) as the next most likely source of help in solving problems and did not for the most partencourage the reader to seek the help of men or their male romantic partners (Table 10).

Appearance

Numerous studies have found that the media often portray people with perfect, or almostperfect, bodies. Table 11 examines the body weight of the characters and models in this study. Coders were asked to categorize each character, model, or person as being very thin, thin, average,muscular, a bit overweight, or obese. Reliability between the coders suggests that viewers would mostlikely categorize the individual similarly as they watch or reads the particular program or article.

In this study, the majority of women in television (51%), film (62%), and commercials (55%)are seen as being of “average” weight or heavier (including “bit overweight” and “obese”). A pluralityof the women in magazine articles (44%) and advertisements (39%) are seen as “average” weight.

However, a substantial proportion of women across all the media are seen as “thin” or “verythin” — 46 percent of women on television, 39 percent in films, 32 percent in commercials, 43 percentof women on music videos, 34 percent in magazine articles, and 26 percent of women in magazine ads. A much smaller proportion of men who are seen as “thin” or “very thin” — 16% of men in television,4% in film, 6% in commercials, 6% in magazine articles, and 8% of men in magazine ads. Only in musicvideos does the proportion of men (44%) seen as “thin” or “very thin” come close to women (43%).

Table 11: Percent of Women and Men’s Perceived Body Weight TelevisionCharacters(number) FilmCharacters*(number) CommercialsModels(number) Music VideosPeople(number) Mag. ArticlesPhotographs(number) MagazineAds. Models(number) Body Weight: Women(109) Men(133) Women(26) Men(45) Women(195) Men(270) Women(14) Men(50) Women(262) Men(110) Women(288) Men(64) Very Thin 7% 1% 0% 0% 3% 0% 0% 8% 2% 0% 2% 0% Thin 39 15 39 4 29 6 43 36 32 6 24 8 Average 41 65 58 76 51 60 36 44 44 70 39 58 Muscular 0 2 0 7 0 4 0 12 0 8 0 2 Bit Overweight 9 7 4 2 4 15 0 0 0 0 0 0 Obese 1 6 0 4 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 Cannot Code 3 5 0 7 14 14 21 0 22 16 36 33 *Note: In these cases, when comparing the distribution of responses for the women to responses for the men, we find differences that are statistically significant at pTable 12 shows the type of clothes worn by characters. Men in all of the media except themagazine advertisements, were more likely than the women to wear business clothes (or a uniform). While almost a quarter of women in television (23%) and film (23%) wore business attire, more than athird of men (35% in television, 44% in film) were portrayed in business clothes. Women in televisionprograms, commercials, and particularly movies, were more often than men found in sleepwear orlingerie–15% of the women and 5% of the men on television, 7% of the women and 0% of the men incommercials, and 42% of the women and 11% of the men in the movies wore undergarments oncamera. Except for the movies, the women were also more likely than the men to be seen in dressy orevening clothes. About one-fourth of the women on television (24%), four out of ten of the women inthe films (42%), and more than one-tenth of the women in commercials (14%) wore dressing orevening clothes.

Table 12: Percent of Women and Men Seen Wearing Each Type of Clothing TelevisionCharacters(number) FilmCharacters*(number) CommercialsModels(number) Music VideosPeople(number) Mag. ArticlesPhotographs(number) MagazineAds. Models(number) Type of Clothing: Women(109) Men(133) Women(26) Men(45) Women(195) Men(270) Women(14) Men(50) Women(262) Men(110) Women(288) Men(64) Sleepwear/Lingerie 15% 5% 42% 11% 7% 0% 21% 0% 3% 1% 2% 3% Business/Uniform 23 35 23 44 12 30 0 16 0 9 0 0 Casual 15 23 27 16 11 18 0 14 7 20 8 13 Dressy/Costume 24 15 42 42 14 10 79 16 6 2 7 2 Note: Bolded pairs of number indicate that the differences between the percent for women and men is statistically significant at pReturn to top

Reflections of Girls in the Media:Press Release Report Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Survey