The Media’s Role In Risk Communication Of Drug Safety

Drug safety risk exists as a form of social risk, studying it helps public reduce theresulting uncertainty. As a way to reduce the uncertainty of drug safety risk, the drug safetyrisk communication is necessary to be researched."Hepatitis B vaccine" incident occurred at the end of2013, leading ten provinces’hepatitis B vaccination rate dropped by30%in December. On this thesis, the case of HepatitisB vaccine will be taken as an example to research the drug safety risk communication. Andthe content analysis and text analysis method will be used to study the media role in drugsafety risk communication.After the analysis on media type, report type, coverage issues and source references ofthis case, it fund that the media achieved the function of “environment monitoring, providinginformation” in these four ways.Meanwhile, the paper found two problems in the reports of “Hepatitis B vaccine” event:pharmaceutical media is apparent absent in this case, so be the expert’s voice.According to the content analysis of “Hepatitis B vaccine”, it fund that the media role inthe drug safety risk communication subject to the government, CDC, business and othersectors. And the reporter’s professional background also has an impact on the accurateexpression of information.