A recent study found media reports often link violence with mental illness, even though only five percent of violent acts are due to mental issues. We look at how the reporting affects our perceptions of mental illness. We also hear about a woman’s life in the world of science, and talk about protecting yourself from extremely high temperatures during the summer.
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Study: Media Disproportionately Links Mental Illness To Violence Like Mass Shootings
The media distorts the link between people with mental illness and violence, increasing the stigmatization that those who have mental disorders are likely to be dangerous, according to a new study.
“The research evidence shows that most people with serious mental illness, which is a category that includes conditions like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, are never violent toward other people,” said Beth McGinty, assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and one of the researchers who worked on a report.
The longitudinal study looked at mental illness stories in news articles in highly-circulated newspapers and widely-watch TV news programs from 1995 to 2014.
“What we found was that there were very few changes in news media coverage of mental illness over that period, and that a large segment, about 40 percent of all news coverage about mental illness, linked mental illness with interpersonal violence, which is disproportionate to the actual research evidence based link that i described,” McGinty said.
She added, “The research evidence clearly shows that most interpersonal violence, violence directed at other people, in the United States is not caused by mental illness. Only about 3-to-5 percent of all violence in our nation has an underlying cause related to mental illness.
McGinty said that people with mental illness generally don’t represent any greater threat of violence, and yet her research showed that mental illness became increasingly linked with people who carried out high-profile mass shootings.
It’s clear to most people, said McGinty, that anyone who carries out a mass shooting or other violent acts isn’t mentally well. However, she said there’s an important distinction to be made here.
“But that does not necessarily mean that they have a diagnosable and treatable mental illness,” she said. “The issue could have do with emotional regulation or anger or a whole host of other risk factors for interpersonal violence, like substance abuse, or a history of abuse or trauma in their life that are the causal factor driving that violence.”
McGinty said the distortion is leading to a stigmatization of people with mental illness, sometimes preventing them from seeking treatment or even becoming victims of housing and employment discrimination, which in turn often perpetuates the problem.
The study also found a lack of positive portrayals of people with mental illness. McGinty said only 14 percent of news stories her team examined shed a positive light on the person with a mental disorder.
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Study: News Reports Commonly Link Mental Health And Violence
A recent study shows news reports link violence with mental health issues about 40 percent of the time, but only about 5 percent of violent incidents in the U.S. have to do with mental illness. Our guest talks about how these reports shape our views on mental health issues.
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A Woman's Life In Science
Our guest scientist studies trees, flowers, seeds, and soil, and she’s become one of Time Magazine’s most influential people along the way. We talk with the author of “Lab Girl,” about a woman’s life in science.
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Protecting Yourself From Extremely High Temperatures
Gov. Scott Walker declared today Heat Awareness Day, ahead of high temperatures this summer. We talk to a healthcare provider about what you can do to stay safe and healthy in extremely high temperatures.
Episode Credits
- Rob Ferrett Host
- Veronica Rueckert Host
- Matt Oleson Producer
- Veronica Rueckert Producer
- Haleema Shah Producer
- Beth McGinty Guest
- Hope Jahren Guest
- Alishia Parma Guest
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