A Spotify Wrapped for public health
Dr. Alex Kresovich's research shines a light on the subtle ways media can influence individual and public health
Alex Kresovich, PhD, is a research scientist with NORC, a nonpartisan research organization based at the University of Chicago. We went through the same graduate program, a few years apart, so I have followed his work closely. Want I appreciate about it is how he takes creative approaches to investigating the under-investigated nooks and crannies of media’s influence on our health-related attitudes and behaviors.
While many health messages explicitly tell us what we could (or should) do to improve our health, other popular messages carry implicit health lessons, too. Dr. Kresovich’s study on pop music lyrics is a great example of how something as seemingly innocuous as a music video can shape how we think about people with mental illness.
In an experiment published in the Journal of Health Communication, compared the effects of listening to Sophie Rose’s song “Break Up with Myself” (an anthem about anxiety) with the lyrics on the screen, versus another song by the same artist not about anxiety (one version with lyrics and the other only instrumental). He found that the song about anxiety resulted in audiences reporting a stronger personal connection to the song, which in turn increased their reported empathy for people dealing with mental health.
In another study, Dr. Kresovich found that parasocial relationships with artists can further promote this sense of a personal connection and resultant mental health empathy. College students who participated in the study also noted that lyrics referencing mental health struggles help them cope with their own mental health issues.
Given that recent estimates suggest that more than two in five college students show symptoms of depression, 37 percent report experiencing anxiety and another 15 percent say they have seriously considered suicide, a medium that can help students cope could be a very important and accessible mini-intervention on any given day. Another study by Dr. Kresovich and colleagues found that mental health references are increasingly common in popular rap lyrics, with increases in mentions of depression, metaphors related to mental health, and even suicide over the past 30 years.
As I have discussed a great deal in this newsletters, celebrities—including pop singers and rappers—can influence their fans to reconsider a wide array of health beliefs. Dr. Kresovich and Seth Noar published a meta-analysis (or, a study of studies) on how “audience involvement processes – such as parasocial interaction and identification – may impact an individual’s response to celebrity health events.” It found, across fourteen studies with more than 5,700 participants, that these celebrity health news events are significantly predictive of changes in behavioral intentions, but it depends on the context. Celebrity disclosures were more impactful than a media persona with a health condition, and people were more likely to intend to change their health behavior if the target behavior was easier to perform.
Long story short, Dr. Kresovich’s individual studies and work summarizing bodies of research makes a strong case for the influence of pop culture on what we think, feel, and do related to health. Below, you can check out Dr. Kresovich’s answers to four of my questions about the many ways in which media use can shape individual and public health perceptions and actions.
Q1: Why do you think music has the power to build empathy? Along the same lines, do you think its the connection with the musician, or the lyrics, or some combination that can help promote positive changes regarding mental health attitudes and behaviors?
I think we tend to let down our guard and open up our minds to other possibilities when we consume different kinds of art. Be it movies, television, music, theater, anything. We're naturally draw to art for all different kinds of reasons, but when it resonates it really hits us in the heart unlike anything else. It opens the door for understanding and even persuasion, I believe, because I think there's a lack of inherent resistance to the messages coming our way.
Music is by far the most passive medium in terms of consumption as well, you don't really have to be paying full attention to consume it. It would be hard to watch a movie while walking around in public just due to it taking up so many senses, but music really just takes up hearing and we've become comfortable with that. So I think there's also an element of consumability and unconscious consumption that might be playing a role here, too.
For your second question, I'd say it's likely a combination. My research has indicated that both feeling like you know the artist personally - parasocial relationships - or feeling like you identify with the message in a song - a form of identification - are both associated with increased mental health empathy when the artist or song is associated with mental health messaging. I think sometimes the connection to the artist - perhaps for a reason other than similar mental health experiences - can open people up to empathy when they disclose mental health difficulties, and sometimes I think it can be the opposite where a song with mental health lyrics really resonate with listeners and they come to feel like they know the artist for that same reason.
Q2: You have also done some really interesting work on partisan news consumption and its connection to stigma toward people dealing with opioid use disorder. Could you summarize that research and tell us why it's so important in today's modern news media landscape?
Sure! Working with some colleagues at NORC at the University of Chicago, we looked at nationally-representative survey data of U.S. adults and observed associations - correlation, not causation - that what news channels you watch may affect how you see opioid addiction and how you think it should be dealt with.
For instance, if you watch Fox News, you might have different opinions compared to someone who watches CNN or MSNBC. We also found that racism is still a big problem when it comes to dealing with opioid addiction.
Our findings suggest that the way the media talks about the opioid crisis could make it harder to tackle the problem effectively, especially in terms of generating public support for evidence-based solutions. This is similar to how other groups, like the LGBTQ community or people with mental or developmental disabilities, have faced challenges but made progress in recent years. It shows we need to look more closely at how the media talks about opioid use disorder to figure out how to best tackle this issue using what we know works.
Q3: Along those lines, have you watched the shows Painkillers or Dopesick? If so, do you think those docu-dramas are effective vehicles for combating substance use stigma?
I did watch 'Dopesick' and it actually piqued my fascination with the public health issues at hand. I also read 'Dreamland' by Sam Quinones which has really influenced my view of the ongoing opioid epidemic. I think - like a lot of Americans - I was pretty naive as to what caused the ongoing epidemic we're experiencing, and I didn't really understand the nature of capitalism and greed from Purdue Pharma and the issues with American poverty and our healthcare system which allowed black tar heroin trade to envelope the country at the same time. It really was a perfect storm, and it really helped me to think more critically about the epidemic and those who struggle with opioid use disorder.
In most cases, these are unlucky people who were trying to cope with pain or overprescribed something they never should have been prescribed to start with. Shows like 'Dopesick' and books like 'Dreamland' really humanize the ongoing issue, and I think they absolutely could be playing a big role in lowering stigma and re-framing the way we think about the epidemic.
Q4: My own background is in journalism and academia, but a lot of work on health communication takes place at think-tanks like where you work, at NORC. For people interested in alt-ac careers, could you tell us a little bit about what drew you to work at NORC and what a typical day in your life is there?
I'm a Research Scientist and member of the Social Data Collaboratory, under Dr. Sherry Emery, in the Public Health Department at NORC. What really appealed to me about NORC was the opportunity to work with other really brilliant public health researchers and getting to really see the work make a real-world difference. Academia is an amazing place, and I really love and am inspired by the work done there. Yet, a think-tank like NORC allows us to take theory and put it to practice and to see real-world changes, and that's incredibly appealing to me.
The other appeal is that no two days are the same. We tend to be spread across a variety of projects, and I'm really enjoying the opportunity to execute different types of public health projects. I'm currently leading or co-leading projects involving evaluation cannabis campaigns in Illinois, both quantitative and qualitative studies regarding the opioid epidemic and opioid stigma attitudes, and various projects with the CDC along with helping to promote the wonderful work we're doing in the Social Data Collaboratory (SDC), which is really exciting and cutting edge. At the SDC, we can apply research methods to social media data in so many interesting ways - both analyzing content and linking it to real-world data like surveys, sales data, and so on.
It really is a pleasure to get to creatively problem-solve with my brilliant colleagues. We're constantly proposing new studies and research to try to improve public health, and I appreciate having the privilege of getting to work on such meaningful work.
Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with Healthy Media, Dr. Kresovich!