Lynette Rice, John Wells, R. Scott Gemmill, Noah Wyle speak on a panel for “The Pitt” at the Deadline Contenders Television 2025 held at the Directors Guild of America on April 05, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Rich Polk/Deadline via Getty Images)
Deadline via Getty Images
Every week, millions of Americans voluntarily spend an hour watching health-related stories.
No public health campaign reaches that many people, commands that much attention, or holds it for that long. Although we don’t think of television as a public health intervention, we should.
‘The Pitt’ has been recognized as one of television’s finest dramas, with 25 Emmy nominations. Regardless of how many awards it ultimately wins in September, the series has already accomplished something more meaningful: It has helped prepare millions of Americans for some of life’s most difficult moments.
Public health professionals have always relied on science to discover what saves lives. We study disease, evaluate interventions, communicate risk, and develop evidence-based recommendations to help people live longer, healthier lives.
Facts tell us what to do, but stories give us the courage to do it.
That is why television has become one of the nation’s most powerful — and most overlooked — public health interventions. Every year, public health agencies spend billions of dollars attempting to help Americans make healthier decisions. We publish reports, launch awareness campaigns,produce public service announcements and build websites.
Those efforts matter, but information alone rarely changes people the way stories do.
For decades, television has quietly done what public health has often struggled to accomplish: it has transformed information into understanding, empathy and action.
Long before streaming services and binge watching, television became America’s health classroom. The “very special episodes” of the 1980s and 1990s introduced families to conversations many struggled to have themselves. Smoking. HIV/AIDS. Drunk driving. Eating disorders. Teen pregnancy. Sexual assault. Suicide. Substance use.
These episodes didn’t simply educate; they gave families permission to talk. Parents and children watched together. They discussed difficult topics around dinner tables. Sometimes they disagreed. Sometimes they cried. But millions of Americans were learning — not from lectures, but from stories.
Then came ‘ER.’
For 15 seasons, viewers welcomed physicians into their homes every Thursday night. Along the way, they learned about trauma systems, organ donation, HIV, emergency contraception, medical ethics, disaster response, physician burnout, and the extraordinary complexity of emergency medicine.
People didn’t need to attend medical school to better understand health care. They simply watched television.
For two compelling seasons, ‘The Pitt’ carries that tradition forward with remarkable authenticity.
It refuses to romanticize medicine. Instead, it invites viewers into the realities clinicians face every day: overcrowded emergency departments, violence against healthcare workers, the toll of addiction and mental illness, the evolving landscape of reproductive healthcare, workforce shortages, false and misleading health information, and the emotional burden of caring for patients.
One episode, in particular, demonstrates why stories can accomplish what facts alone cannot. In it, ER nurse Dana cares for a woman who has been sexually assaulted.
The audience witnesses a trauma-informed forensic examination with extraordinary compassion. Every step is explained, consent is requested repeatedly and the patient remains in control of every decision. The health care team protects not only physical evidence, but also dignity.
Public health professionals have spent decades encouraging survivors of sexual assault to seek medical care. Hospitals have created brochures explaining Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner programs. Advocacy organizations have produced educational videos. Websites carefully describe every step of a forensic examination.
Those resources matter, but none of them can replace the empathy and compassionate that millions of viewers experienced by spending an hour with Dana and her patient.
For someone who experiences a sexual assault in the future, that episode may reduce enough fear to persuade them to seek medical care. A parent may better understand how to support a child. A friend may know what to say — or what not to say. A young person may decide to become a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner because they witnessed what dignity in health care looks like.
We’ve seen this before. In 1994, millions of Americans met Pedro Zamora on MTV’s ‘The Real World: San Francisco.’ At a time when HIV remained deeply misunderstood and surrounded by fear, Zamora invited viewers into his life with extraordinary honesty.
When he died from AIDS-related complications just hours after the season finale aired, millions mourned someone they felt they knew personally. Research has shown that beyond the statistics and public service announcements circulating about HIV, Zamora’s appearance increased knowledge and helped reduce stigma, particularly among younger viewers.
But TV and Hollywood have not always had a positive influence on health. For decades, Hollywood glamorized smoking. From Humphrey Bogart and James Dean to Leonardo DiCaprio in ‘Titanic,’ cigarettes became symbols of confidence, sophistication, rebellion, and romance. What appeared to be harmless entertainment was, in reality, shaping behavior.
Research consistently found that adolescents exposed to smoking in films were significantly more likely to start smoking themselves. The stories weren’t simply reflecting culture — they were shaping it.
Public health advocates took notice. They worked with the entertainment industry to rethink how smoking was portrayed on screen, and major studios — including Disney — adopted policies that sharply reduced smoking in films intended for children.
The result wasn’t censorship, but an acknowledgment that stories have consequences.
I grew up watching cartoon characters smoke. My children did not.
That cultural shift didn’t happen by accident. It happened because we recognized that what audiences see on screen influences what they believe, what they accept as normal, and ultimately how they behave.
For decades, physicians, researchers, public health professionals, and entertainment leaders have worked together to ensure that when millions of Americans watch a television show, they aren’t simply being entertained. They are also receiving accurate, evidence-based information.
Hollywood, Health & Society, a program of the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center, quietly serves as a bridge between science and storytelling. They offer writers free consultations, expert briefings and access to the latest evidence. The Entertainment Industry Foundation similarly connects the creative community with experts and purpose-driven campaigns that help weave important health issues into compelling narratives.
Perhaps it’s time we expanded our definition of a public health intervention. We readily recognize vaccines, sanitation, fluoridated water, seatbelt laws, and tobacco control because they improve health. Storytelling also belongs on that list.
Businesses understand this instinctively. Companies invest billions of dollars every year telling stories because stories shape consumer behavior. Political campaigns spend billions crafting narratives because stories influence elections.
Public health should recognize the same truth. Facts, science and evidence matter. They may tell us what to do, but stories give us the courage to do it.