Statistics… the numerical newsmaker

by Julie Baglot

Julie Baglot is Public Relations Officer for SunSmart at the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria in Australia. Julie has worked in PR for five years in a range of different industries including health promotion, telecommunications, event management and retail. She has a Graduate Diploma in Communications from the Queensland University of Technology and is a Member of the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA).

SunSmart is the internationally recognised skin cancer control program of the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria in Australia. The program began in 1980 with the first "Slip! Slop! Slap!" advertising campaign, which featured an animated Sid Seagull who persuaded us to Slip on a shirt, Slop on sunscreen and Slap on a hat to avoid skin cancer. In 1988, the SunSmart program adopted its name and today the term "sunsmart" is commonly used in Australia to describe behaviour, clothes, people, organisations and activities.

Boring stats, you say? I beg to differ. What some people call "boring" statistics, the public relations industry calls news. Statistics are the bread and butter news stories in many industries, particularly those industries that rely on research. The challenge for professional communicators is to package complicated figures for the general public in a way they can understand and act on.

The Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria works to educate the public about the causes of cancer and the importance of early detection. The Anti-Cancer Council is the leading cancer research and education organisation in Australia and ranks among the best in the world. Each year the organisation funds millions of dollars of research projects to discover the causes and cure of cancer.

Research fulfills the need to monitor prevalence of and trends in cancer-related behaviours, incidence, and mortality. Statistics provide information about the size of the cancer problem, the number of people diagnosed and the number of people who die from it. Trends can be looked at by age, sex, ethnic background, and residence, as well as over time. Targets for cancer prevention programs and the impact of such intervention programs can be described.

The extensive research generates endless facts and figures, which serve no real purpose unless they are communicated through various media to people who can act upon them. Often the information is of most benefit to a doctor for the treatments of cancer, or to the person at most risk of developing cancer. The challenge, then, is to convey the information in an understandable, user-friendly way. At the Anti-Cancer Council we don't think of the big "C" as cancer, we think of it as communication.

Statistics, generated by research, are essential to our health education programs and our media campaigns -- they stimulate debate, create interest, provide serious evidence, offer a call to action, or a pat on the back. They can be used to focus media attention on an issue and add new angles to existing messages.

People often have more respect for numbers than words and can relate to, and take notice of, the "cold, hard" facts. Take the statistic, for example, that shows "two out of three Australians will get skin cancer" -- this means if you're an Australian, you have a pretty high chance of getting the disease. This statistic was derived from three separate studies undertaken at five-year intervals and involving more than 150,000 people in total. Follow this with the statement that "95 percent of skin cancer is cured if detected early" and your prospects for survival start to look better and you're more likely to check your skin for unusual changes. Thus, the early detection message starts working.

Australia and the United States lead the world in cancer survival rates. In Australia, 53 per cent of people who contract cancer recover from the disease. Everyone likes a better than even chance. But, turn the statistic round to show that 47 per cent of people who get cancer die from it, and it looks a little grimmer. Statistics can deliver the message most appropriate to the audience to effect the behaviour change needed.

Comparing statistics to other well-known numbers can also be helpful. Did you know more people die from smoking-related cancers than all other cancers combined? Or that more people in Australia die from skin cancer than from AIDS? Reams of epidemiological data on mortality rates must be analysed to determine these "facts." The table below shows mortality data as it is published by Australian cancer registries. To present this table to the public could result in unnecessary panic or may simply not impact at all. The figures must be converted to a statement similar to that above to be effective and useful.

 Mortality summary table  

Australia 1994                             Males                                                  Females  
 

Note: Rates are expressed per 100,000 population and age-standardised to the Australian 1991 populations standard (AS Rate) Source: Cancer in Australia 1991-1994 (with Projections to 1999), Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

Textbooks teach budding journalists how to determine the relative news value of information or events. Many of these news values such as impact, timeliness, and localisation can be fulfilled with the use of well-placed statistics.

Just a few of many reference texts I use …

• Granato, L. (1991) Reporting and Writing News (Prentice Hall Australia)
• Wilcox, Ault & Agee (1989) Public Relations: Strategies and Tactics (Harper Collins Publishers)
• Wilcox & Nolte (1995) Public Relations Writing and Media Techniques (Harper Collins College Publishers)
• Hunt & Grunig (1994) Public Relations Techniques (Harcourt Brace College Publishers)

When survey or study results impact on a large number of people or when the impact is large for a small number of people affected, statistics become newsworthy. In the case of death or disfigurement from cancer, saving just one life is often enough to create news.

Statistics are always timely and help to add fresh impact to particular messages even though the message itself may remain the same. To encourage and remind women to have a Pap test for cervical cancer every two years the PapScreen Victoria campaign recently released research which showed that in the two year period 1996-97, 70 per cent of Victorian women had a Pap test. The high percentage shows the message is effective and encourages women to continue their current behaviour. Creating news relevant to a specific community can be achieved by localising statistics and survey results. Each year 30,000 skin cancers are treated in Victoria, Australia. This information is of interest and importance to Victorians and it can be used to encourage behaviour changes.

Money, especially large amounts, is always interesting and newsworthy. Statistics showing the costs of health services, the reduction or increase in funding, or the granting of research funds generate high numbers of news stories.

Statistics can be expressed in many different newsworthy ways to attract media attention. The skill is to package them to ensure your message is expressed effectively and not hiding it behind complicated facts and figures.

Interested in additional statistics? The Cancer Council of NSW (New South Wales) web site http://www.nswcc.org.au lists a lot of Australian and New South Wales stats (The Victoria site is not up-to-date at the moment.)

Want to learn more about Australia’s highly recognised SunSmart PR campaign? http://www.accv.org.au/4sunsmart/ss.html

Ever wondered about the ethical requirements of PR officers? Here is a link to the PRIA’s Code of Ethics page http://www.pria.com.au/codes.htm

-- JB
© Julie Baglot, 1998