Behind the Headlines

Written by Adapted from an article by Claire Charnley, Library and Knowledge Services Manager, Shropshire County PCT

Don't be put off by the instantly forgettable web address for this site. Once you've managed to get it typed in once and saved to your ‘favourites', this site will keep you up to date with the health stories in the news headlines and give you an independent view on whether there's any truth behind them at the same time.

Each item follows roughly the same format:

• What the newspaper/BBC said
• Their source for the article
• What the source really said
• Some indication of whether the source got it right in the first place

To take a recent example, ‘Behind the headlines' picked up on a Daily Mail headline that claimed ‘How eating a burger and chips can make your baby a boy (and chocolate will produce a girl)'. The authors tracked down the source of the Daily Mail's story. This turned out to be a research study on mice that found that variations in blood sugar levels were one of several factors that could influence the sex of mice's offspring. The conclusion was that the newspaper headline was an ‘over-interpretation' of the actual research findings!

‘Behind the headlines' is part of the NHS Choices web site, and is a more comprehensive and consumer-oriented version of ‘Hitting the Headlines' on the National Library for Health. At present it seems to cover a news story or two each day, but obviously cannot hope to include all health items in the headlines. You can browse the stories by broad subject headings but you can't search (other than by searching the whole NHS Choices site). As for keeping track on the latest stories without constantly revisiting the site, you can't receive e-mail updates, but there is a news/RSS feed available too. So, next time a patient arrives clutching a newspaper cutting and some chocolate bars/a Big Mac, why not pay ‘Behind the headlines' a visit to find out the truth behind it all?

Published: December 2009

Categories: Improvement tools

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