Abstract:

Health is a very important news category and its importance in human life increases daily. Health news creates awareness by informing individuals and society about health-related issues. Therefore, this type of news is a very important tool in terms of influencing individual and societal attitudes and behaviors and raising their levels of consciousnesses. In this context, the study aims to examine the effect perceptions toward health news have on health awareness. Within the scope of the study, the “Health News Perception” scale developed by Çınar, Şengül, Çapa, Çakmak and Bilge (2018) and the “Healthy Life Awareness” scale used by Özer and Yılmaz (2019) in their study were used. Data were obtained from 343 people using the online survey technique and tested using quantitative analysis methods with the statistical package program SPSS. As a result of the analyses on sensitivity awareness for all sub-dimensions of perceptions toward health news (i.e., commercial anxiety and exploiting health behaviors, behavioral change, being directed toward consumption), the sub-dimensions of commercial anxiety and exploiting health behaviors and of being directed toward consumption affect health living awareness (p<0.05). With regard to perceptions toward health news in terms of marital status, age, and education level, the study determined healthy living awareness to differ for age and education level (p<0.05).

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