A new study suggests mass media coverage can prove useful in slowing the spread of disease during an epidemic. But not all media coverage is created equal.

According the research detailed in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, media coverage is most helpful when it focuses on augmenting people's behavior during the epidemic.

Researchers in Canada and China looked at how news coverage affected the H1N1 epidemic in the city of Xian in central China's Shaanxi province. They found more frequent and longer lasting epidemic-related news coverage correlated with fewer hospital visits.

"During the A/H1N1 outbreak in Xian, I came down with a bad cold and stayed in the university hospital for treatment," study co-author Sanyi Tang, a researcher at Shaanxi Normal University, explained in a press release. "Because of the large number of patients with A/H1N1 and the limited number of beds, I was given medicine and released from the hospital."

"This process made me and my team members begin to think about how we could use mathematical modelling and statistical methods to study the outbreak," Tang continued. "We started studying interventions used to control the outbreak, most recently looking at the effect of media coverage."

First, Tang and his colleagues found a correlation between online news articles with the tag "A/H1N1" from eight major news sites and visits to the province's dedicated influenza hospital -- the greater the number of stories, the fewer epidemic-related hospital visits.

Using this info, the researchers built a model to help them better analyze the relationship between media coverage and the spread of the influenza.

They were able to determine that mass media coverage -- including television, radio, newspapers, billboards and booklets -- had a noticeable effect on people's behavior and the spread of the disease.

They also showed that duration of the coverage mattered. When coverage duration stretched longer, there was more epidemic-related news, which helped inform the public of the risks and the necessary precautionary steps.

"The success of any comprehensive prevention and control strategy of the emerging infectious diseases relies on the confidence -- and action -- of the public in the strategy, and media plays a substantial role in building this confidence," said study co-author Sandra Gabriele, a media professor at York University in Canada

"In order to help reduce the accumulated number of new notifications, the media should have been more persistent in their reporting of number of infections, hospitalizations and deaths," added Tang. "In addition, news reports needed to be timely and continue for longer periods."