Research Purpose: Most of the key organizations that make up the architecture of the global health landscape are nonprofit, non-governmental organizations that rely on charitable support to operate their critical missions. Understanding media coverage of the topic of global health and its key subtopics, such as pandemic preparedness, as well as coverage of the global health organizations themselves, is key for preparing successful communications and replenishment efforts for such organizations. 

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With funding from the Gates Foundation and in partnership with Alto Intelligence and Brunswick, MEAG conducted a comprehensive media analysis on the topic of global health, on data from November 1, 2023 through January 31, 2024, and published in July 2024. The research spanned four donor nations (France, Germany, United Kingdom, and United States) and four Global South countries (Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, and India). Publications of study were those included in Media Cloud’s geographic, national-level news collections for each of the selected countries. Analysis was undertaken in three languages: German (Germany), French (France, Senegal), and English (India, Kenya, Nigeria, United Kingdom, United States). Three levels of analysis were completed for all countries: 

• Attention: the volume of coverage about the topic of global health and specific subtopics of interest, relative to the overall media production in the country;
• Language: the narratives, phrases, and keywords emerging as most salient in coverage;
• Entities: the people and organizations most prominent in coverage.

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Key Findings: 

1. Global health stories account for between 0.6%-0.7% of all news in nearly all countries of study. In Nigeria, 1.1% of articles pertain to global health. Typically, this is more coverage than the issue of gender equality, but less than climate change, the economy, or a high-stakes current global event (in this case, the war in Ukraine). 
2. Global health stories in donor countries are more likely to be focused on Covid than other subtopics; global health stories in Global South countries are more likely to be focused on HIV and malaria. 
3. The World Health Organization is the most influential entity in global health news across countries. Other influential entities include federal and state government agencies and actors, pharmaceutical companies, and large nongovernmental organizations. 
4. Climate issues emerged from the data as another key subtopic within global health news; though never the most prevalent subtopic, it accounts for around 10% of global health stories across countries of study. Climate is often cross-cutting into other subtopics, cited as a key factor in rising rates of disease and a threat to global health systems. 
5. Inclusion of mentions to children and women is common in global health coverage and subtopics across all countries. This emphasis on the impact to vulnerable populations is a popular and likely salient frame.  
6. There is a significant focus on Africa within coverage of global health. All but one of the non-African countries in the study had Africa/African among the top keywords for global health stories and/or subtopics.  
7. Many of the key stories that drove coverage to the issue used a risk angle. Risks were specific to the country of publication (water resources in Senegal, travelers health in Germany), and ranged from immediate (higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases) to long term (the next pandemic).

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