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. 2021 Apr 9;16(4):e0249835.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0249835. eCollection 2021.

Microbiome research in general and business newspapers: How many microbiome articles are published and which study designs make the news the most?

Andreu Prados-Bo  1   2 , Gonzalo Casino  1   3
Affiliations

Microbiome research in general and business newspapers: How many microbiome articles are published and which study designs make the news the most?

Andreu Prados-Bo et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

The microbiome is a matter of interest for science, consumers and business. Our objective is to quantify that interest in academic journals and newspapers, both quantitatively and by study design. We calculated the number of articles on the microbiome from the total number of biomedicine articles featured in both PubMed and Spanish science news agency SINC, from 2008 to 2018. We used the Factiva database to identify news stories on microbiome papers in three general newspapers (The New York Times, The Times and El País) and three business newspapers (The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and Expansión), from 2007 to 2019. Then, we compared news stories with microbiome papers in PubMed, while also analyzing the frequencies of five study design types, both in the newspapers and in the papers themselves. Microbiome papers represented 0.8% of biomedicine papers in PubMed from 2008 to 2018 (increasing from 0.4% to 1.4%), while microbiome news published by SINC represented 1.6% of total biomedical news stories during the same period (increasing from 0.2% to 2.2%). The number of news stories on microbiome papers correlated with the number of microbiome papers (0.91, p < 0.001) featured in general newspapers, but not in business ones. News stories on microbiome papers represented 78.9% and 42.7% of all microbiome articles in general and business newspapers, respectively. Both media outlet types tended to over-report observational studies in humans while under-reporting environmental studies, while the representation of systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials, randomized controlled trials and animal/laboratory studies was similar when comparing newspapers and PubMed. The microbiome is receiving increasing attention in academic journals and newspapers. News stories on the microbiome in general and business newspapers are mostly based on research findings and are more interested in observational studies in humans and less in environmental studies compared to PubMed.

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Conflict of interest statement

have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: APB is a paid consultant to companies commercially involved in the gut microbiota and probiotics. GC has declared no competing interests. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Process flow diagram of the categorization of news stories on microbiome papers.
Fig 2
Fig 2. News stories on microbiome papers compared to microbiome papers in PubMed.
(A) Individual newspapers; (B) General vs business newspapers; (C) Newspapers grouped by countries (the USA, the UK and Spain); (D) Microbiome news/biomedicine news published by SINC (2008–2018) vs microbiome papers/biomedicine papers in PubMed (2007–2019). Microbiome papers in PubMed are presented as a black curve on each graph.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Over-representation and under-representation of microbiome study designs in the press vs PubMed.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Grants and funding

The authors received no specific funding for this work.

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