Data from: Newspaper coverage of maternal health in Bangladesh, Rwanda, and South Africa: a quantitative and qualitative content analysis

Objective: To examine newspaper coverage of maternal health in three countries that have made varying progress towards Millennium Development Goal 5 (MDG 5): Bangladesh (on track), Rwanda (making progress, but not on track) and South Africa (no progress). Design: We analysed each country's leading national English-language newspaper: Bangladesh's The Daily Star, Rwanda's The New Times/The Sunday Times, and South Africa's Sunday Times/The Times. We quantified the number of maternal health articles published from 1 January 2008 to 31 March 2013. We conducted a content analysis of subset of 190 articles published from 1 October 2010 to 31 March 2013. Results: Bangladesh's The Daily Star published 579 articles related to maternal health from 1 January 2008 to 31 March 2013, compared to 342 in Rwanda's The New Times/The Sunday Times and 253 in South Africa's Sunday Times/The Times over the same time period. The Daily Star had the highest proportion of stories advocating for or raising awareness of maternal health. Most maternal health articles in The Daily Star (83%) and The New Times/The Sunday Times (69%) used a ‘human-rights’ or ‘policy-based’ frame compared to 41% of articles from Sunday Times/The Times. Conclusions: In the three countries included in this study, which are on different trajectories towards MDG 5, there were differences in the frequency, tone and content of their newspaper coverage of maternal health. However, no causal conclusions can be drawn about this association between progress on MDG 5 and the amount and type of media coverage of maternal health.研究目标：本研究旨在考察三个在千年发展目标5号（Millennium Development Goal 5，MDG 5）推进进程中表现出不同进展的国家的报纸对孕产妇健康的报道情况，这三个国家分别为：孟加拉国（已达标）、卢旺达（正取得进展但未达标）以及南非（未取得进展）。 研究设计：本研究分析了各国主流全国性英文报纸：孟加拉国的《每日星报》（The Daily Star）、卢旺达的《新时报/星期日时报》（The New Times/The Sunday Times）以及南非的《星期日时报/时报》（Sunday Times/The Times）。我们统计了2008年1月1日至2013年3月31日期间发表的孕产妇健康相关文章的总数量，并对2010年10月1日至2013年3月31日期间的190篇文章子集开展了内容分析。 研究结果：2008年1月1日至2013年3月31日期间，孟加拉国《每日星报》共刊发579篇孕产妇健康相关文章，同期卢旺达《新时报/星期日时报》与南非《星期日时报/时报》的相关文章数量分别为342篇和253篇。《每日星报》中倡导孕产妇健康或提升其相关认知的报道占比最高。《每日星报》83%的孕产妇健康文章、《新时报/星期日时报》69%的相关文章采用了“人权”或“基于政策”的报道框架，而《星期日时报/时报》的该类文章占比仅为41%。 研究结论：本研究纳入的三个国家在MDG 5的推进轨迹上存在差异，其报纸对孕产妇健康的报道在频次、基调与内容维度上均存在不同。然而，目前无法就MDG 5的进展与孕产妇健康媒体报道的数量及类型之间的关联得出因果性结论。