Media-Neglected AIDS Countries

Friday, September 24. 2004

Which countries receive too little media attention given their AIDS prevalence? We know how much press attention countries receive overall (at least as based on citations in the Kaiser Daily HIV / AIDS Report, published since 1999 and probably the most widely read AIDS news resource). We also know how many people have HIV in each country (as cited by UNAIDS). If we combine these two data types, we can determine "media citations per million cases", giving an idea of relative media attention a country receives. Here is a table of the 40 developing countries with the highest incidence of AIDS ranked from "most neglected by the media" to "least neglected by the media":

	People with HIV	Kaiser Citations	Citations per million cases
Madagascar	140,000	6	43
Sudan	400,000	20	50
Colombia	190,000	10	53
Nigeria	3,600,000	208	58
Chad	200,000	12	60
Dem. Republic of Congo	1,100,000	72	65
Central African Republic	260,000	20	77
Burkina Faso	300,000	24	80
Burundi	250,000	20	80
United Rep. of Tanzania	1,600,000	133	83
Ethiopia	1,500,000	126	84
India	5,100,000	449	88
Cameroon	560,000	57	102
Mozambique	1,300,000	144	111
Malawi	900,000	111	123
Zimbabwe	1,800,000	224	124
Cote d'Ivoire	570,000	79	139
Myanmar	330,000	47	142
Ukraine	360,000	57	158
Lesotho	320,000	63	197
Mali	140,000	28	200
Ghana	350,000	76	217
Russian Federation	860,000	189	220
Angola	240,000	56	233
Zambia	920,000	236	257
Kenya	1,200,000	309	258
South Africa	5,300,000	1461	276
Guinea	140,000	46	329
Haiti	280,000	100	357
Brazil	660,000	237	359
Rwanda	250,000	97	388
Viet Nam	220,000	103	468
Swaziland	220,000	105	477
Namibia	210,000	102	486
China	840,000	445	530
Cambodia	170,000	102	600
Thailand	570,000	468	821
Botswana	350,000	291	831
Uganda	530,000	489	923
Mexico	160,000	159	994

Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo are particularly notable members of this list, representing 10% of the world's cases of HIV between them but garnering only 1% of press citations.

Full spreadsheet with these data is available here.

Posted by Jim Cashel in Policy at 03:09 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

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Amazing numbers.

Any thoughts on implications? Does this imply not enough funding in undercovered countries? Should part of an effort to rationalize funding be "promotion" of specific country cases? Or is the undercoverage a symptom not a cause?

#1 David Witzel on 2004-09-26 20:06 (Reply)

My sense is that coverage will always show marked variance, but that it is useful for journalists to be aware of the "uncovered" stories (e.g. Nigeria and Congo) and not always follow the more well-trodden paths (e.g. Uganda and Botswana).

#1.1 Jim Cashel (Homepage) on 2004-09-27 01:22 (Reply)

Perhaps a more nuanced way of looking at the e-visibility of these articles is that they concern digital print media-neglected AND KFF-neglected country level issues. Each article that makes it to our inboxes or the website is subject to bias by both print media editors AND Kaiser Family Foundation editors.

#2 Jamie Uhrig (Homepage) on 2004-11-02 05:38 (Reply)

Good point, Jamie. One reason I think it useful to look at Kaiser coverage is because your newsfeed is so widely read by professionals (as discussed here: http://www.aidsmatters.org/archives/9-IAEN-Information-Resources-Survey.html ) and also because your coverage not only tracks the press, it drives much of the press as well.

#2.1 Jim Cashel (Homepage) on 2004-11-02 09:17 (Reply)

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AIDS Matters is a Web resource for global AIDS professionals managed by Jim Cashel with the assistance of others. It is sponsored by Forum One Communications, a Washington, DC web strategy firm.