A year in the public life of COVID-19 and Vitamin D: Representation in UK news media and implications for health communications

Objectives To investigate how the relationship between vitamin D and COVID-19 has been presented in traditional media sources (UK newspapers) and assess the level of misinformation associated with this issue by comparing newspaper article content to the evidence-based guidelines. Design Qualitative study Setting Data were collected over the first year of the pandemic (February 2019-20), from the five most widely read UK based newspapers by searching the Nexis database using keywords “vitamin D” and “COVID”. An inductive thematic analysis was carried out on the data to identify themes and subthemes. Quality control of the coding was conducted on a sample of the dataset (20%). Data were also compared to the “ground truth” identified as the NICE report titled “COVID-19 rapid guideline: vitamin D” to explore the accuracy of media outputs. Results The four main themes identified were ‘association of vitamin D with COVID-19’, ‘politically informed views’, ‘vitamin D deficiency’ and ‘vitamin D sources’. When compared to the ground truth, most of the information from newspaper articles relating to the key findings was ‘correct’ for each of the findings, except for COVID-19 infection. Conclusions Although most of the information included in newspaper articles concerning the relationship of vitamin D with COVID-19 was ‘correct’, this study highlighted that there was still a notable amount of ‘incorrect’ information published. In the context of COVID-19, it is imperative that media outputs are accurate and inform the public and front-line health professionals as correct information is a key factor in disease prevention. Future research should focus on the accuracy of media outputs to further investigate health misinformation as an issue in traditional media and how that may affect public health. Attempts should be made to improve journalistic integrity through more rigorous and standardised regulations enforced across all media outlets so that public knowledge on current events is based on evidence rather than conjecture. Summary boxes Data sharing statement: We are happy to share any data if/when asked.