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tential public health implications in Web sites. In an era in which information on health matters is disseminated rapidly by the media, circulation of information within the scientific community should be at least as fast, while preserving the quality and reliability of scientific journals. This work was performed as a part of Ricerca Corrente degli Istituti di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico, 1997.

The so-called media agenda has a great influence on the issues considered to be important by society. In this article, based on the Informe Quiral (Quiral Survey), the author analyses the coverage of health issues in Spanish press. In Spain, media concentration causes a clear tendency to information homogeneity and thus, health issues are rarely dealt with in an independent way or in its own specific space or by specialized professionals. The main chronic issues the Spanish press has followed during the years included in the survey have been: cancer, sexuality and reproduction, aids, drugs (including tobacco), mental disorders and nutrition-related issues. Politicians or individuals with political and technical posts are the sources which carry the burden of informing about health issues (49%). On the other hand, the more specialized sector is the source of information in only 26% of the cases. In order to improve health information, the author suggests establishing communication platforms and closer collaboration between the specialized sector and the media, fostering mutual knowledge of all professional groups taking part in the process and ridding health information of all political influences.

The increasing perception that public communication in science and technology is an important tool to create a knowledge society is encouraging numerous public engagement activities. However, too little is known about scientists’ opinions of and attitudes towards the public with whom they interact during these activities, especially in southern European countries such as Spain. If we want to establish an effective dialogue between science and society, we need to be aware of the opinions and perceptions that both parties have of each other. In this study, we address this issue by focusing on 1022 responses to a survey conducted among scientists in Spain to discover their views of the public, and we then compare these responses with data from other national surveys on the public’s understanding of science. The results show that approximately 75% of Spanish scientists think that the general public has a serious lack of knowledge and understanding of scientific reasoning, although scientists do recognize that science interests the public (73%). Scientists believe that the public values the scientific profession to a lesser extent than suggested by public surveys: on a scale of 1–5, survey respondents rate their valuation of the scientific profession at 4.22, whereas scientists rate the public's valuation of the profession at 3.12, on average. Significant differences were detected between scientists’ perceptions of how citizens are informed about science and what citizens report in surveys. The challenge for the future is to narrow this gap in order to help scientists gain a better understanding of the public and their interests and to make public engagement activities more effective.