​Researchers at Bath Spa University are teaming up with a national charity to look at how young women responded to the media coverage of onetime Big Brother contestant Jade Goody’s death from cervical cancer.

The tragedy of the 27-year-old, who married her fiancé Jack Tweed a month before she died from the disease in March 2009, attracted blanket newspaper and TV coverage.

At the time, she was praised for her  work to raise awareness, in her final months, of the importance of cervical cancer screening.

Now two senior lecturers in media communications at the university, Dr Daniel Ashton and Dr Rebecca Feasey, have begun researching what has been called the “Jade Effect” – the surge in the number of young women who came forward for cancer screening.

The researchers will be working with Jo’s Trust, a charity dedicated to women and their families affected by cervical cancer.

Their aim is to find out what young female tabloid readers and cervical cancer sufferers, in particular, think of Ms Goody’s portrayal in the media.

The university team will look at how a high-profile case can influence public understanding of a disease, how celebrities are used to communicate health messages to the public, and how those messages are interpreted by different people.

The academics have been given £5,000 from the university’s Sharing Knowledge, Shaping Practice fund.