The Press: How PR firms use research to sell products
Authors: Petra Boynton, Sara Shaw, Will Callaghan
Journal: BMJ (2004)

In the past month we have seen some pretty astonishing research. Studies have proved that moving to the countryside, drinking wine, or discussing your relationship problems in bed can improve sexual problems. Owning a pet helps you recover more quickly from illness, testosterone causes unsafe sex, and if your eyes are brown or green they are officially the “wrong” colour. But texting is good for your mental health.

You may not have been privy to these discoveries unless, like us, you have an interest in what research appears in the lay media, or are regularly targeted by public relations companies.

While many questions have been asked about research undertaken by pharmaceutical companies, until now there has been a tendency to ignore the activities of PR companies, which have begun using “research” to sell products. They conduct a “study”—usually a “survey”—and aggressively target the press, making sure the coverage names their product. The result is quick and dirty research, with cheap advertising.

It is easy to dismiss such work, but, given that health is a favourite topic for the PR study, we ought to be concerned—particularly because PR companies have big budgets to promote their research, to the exclusion of more reliable, ethical work. Although the Royal Society is currently looking at how scientific research is reviewed and reported, it seems that PR studies may be slipping through the net.

PR research is intrinsically flawed because it is completed in a short space of time with no ethical approval nor peer review. Often the PR company has decided on the outcome way before the study begins. Where experts are involved they are unlikely to design or analyse the research, and are often provided with quotes to say about the study by the PR company. Whereas research undertaken with NHS staff or patients must now comply with the research governance framework, PR companies have no such responsibilities when contacting members of the public outside of the NHS. For example, one company wanting to promote a new treatment for thrush asked one of us (Petra Boynton) to endorse a high street survey that asked passers-by if they had a sexually transmitted infection, including HIV (she declined). Such a study would not be possible in an NHS research environment.

Such studies are driven by potential headlines, not a hypothesis or an awareness of existing data. So PR research has outcomes that directly contradict existing evidence, make no reference to it, or replicate it on a far shoddier level (for example a magazine survey of the nation's health may hit the headlines, even though national health data also exists).

Because PR survey results are presented as startling, journalists may see a good headline, a light story, or a way of meeting a looming deadline. We estimate that the average magazine or newspaper journalist will be targeted by several PR companies a day. Since PR studies frequently use big numbers—the magic 1000 participants—some journalists are also beginning to distrust research that has smaller samples, perhaps meaning that many health studies, particularly qualitative ones, are ignored.

There is a danger that media outlets could become wall-to-wall PR. This is going to be an increasingly important issue for all of us involved in high-quality, ethical health research. Now it is time to extend the debate before the public becomes completely disillusioned with so-called research.