Work

Effects of communicating health disparities using social comparison framing: A comprehensive review

Year: 2024

Type: review

Abstract: Communicating health disparities in mass and social media has typically taken the form of comparing disease risks and outcomes between two or more social groups, a strategy known as social comparison framing. This comprehensive review examined the design and results of 17 studies from 15 peer-reviewed journal articles about the effects of social comparison framing of health disparities. Most studies focus on race-based disparities across a variety of health topics. For individual-level outcomes, social comparison tends to reduce perceived disease risks for the lower disease prevalence group while prompting negative emotions and yielding inconsistent impact on health behavioral intentions among members of the higher prevalence group. For societal-level outcomes, social comparison often has either null or polarizing effects on support for policies to address these disparities that vary by racial identity/attitudes of the respondents. Studies also find that racial comparisons trigger lower levels of support for policy remedies relative to economic, educational, or geographic comparisons. We conclude that social comparison framing of health disparities, in the absence of broader discussion of the social and structural causes of these disparities, is more likely to incur negative consequences. We propose several possible strategies to communicate health disparity information more effectively.

Source: Social Science & Medicine

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.116808

Authors: Jiawei Liu, Jeff Niederdeppe

Institution: Cornell University

Language: English

Topic: Media Influence and Health

Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Good health and well-being, Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,390