Evaluating the Ozioma cancer news service: a community randomized trial in 24 U.S. cities.

Objective: This community randomized trial evaluated effects of the Ozioma News Service on the amount and quality of cancer coverage in Black weekly newspapers in 24 U.S. cities.

Method: We created and operated Ozioma, the first cancer information news service specifically for Black newspapers. Over 21 months, Ozioma developed community- and race-specific cancer news releases for each of 12 Black weekly newspapers in intervention communities. Cancer coverage in these papers was tracked before and during the intervention and compared to 12 Black newspapers in control communities.

Results: From 2004 to 2007, we coded 9257 health and cancer stories from 3178 newspaper issues. Intervention newspapers published approximately 4 times the expected number of cancer stories compared to control newspapers (p(12,21 mo)<.01), and also saw an increase in graphics (p(12,21 mo)<.01), local relevance (p(12 mo)=.01), and personal mobilization (p(12 mo)<.10). However, this increased coverage supplanted other health topics and had smaller graphics (NS), had less community mobilization (p(21 mo)=.01), and is less likely to be from a local source (NS).

Conclusion: Providing news releases with localized and race-specific features to minority-serving media outlets can increase the quantity of cancer coverage. Results are mixed for the journalistic and public health quality of this increased cancer coverage in Black newspapers.