Social Media as a Tool to Increase the Impact of Public Health Research

The traditional methods that public health researchers use to communicate their work, including conference presentations and journal articles, have limited reach. Professional conferences are not attended by the public, and few scientific papers receive mass media attention. Furthermore, not all presentations and journal articles will be of interest to the media, and, among those that are, some control over the message can be lost depending on how journalists frame the work. Social media, by contrast, allows public health researchers to both shape messages and disseminate their work to any audience they choose to build. Social media posts can also complement media coverage by assisting in the dissemination of press releases and providing forums for discussion. To the extent that public health researchers effectively and efficiently leverage social media, it provides an unprecedented opportunity to directly reach the public, shape public discourse, and affect policy.

Social media refers to online platforms that allow users to generate content, exchange information, and communicate with one another. Popular platforms include Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube. Blogs, which allow for longer-form content, are another form of social media. Roughly 69% of US adults use at least one kind of social media, with similar rates across racial and ethnic groups and rates near 90% for adults younger than 30 years.¹ Professional organizations, public health agencies (e.g., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] and the World Health Organization), and hospitals routinely use social media for science and health messaging. All major news outlets and many local news outlets also use social media, providing additional dissemination portals and ways to combine news and events with the capabilities of smartphones. The US President and almost all members of Congress use social media, presenting opportunities to interface with legislators.

Researchers have been slower to adopt social media for professional use. One study revealed that just 47% of US scientists surveyed had ever used social media to discuss their work.² Although further research is needed to explore how public health researchers use social media and to determine the extent to which it is used to engage the public versus professionals, public health researchers have much to gain from disseminating their work on social media. Here we describe five such benefits. We also developed a primer to guide public health researchers in the use of popular social media platforms (see the appendix, available as a supplement to the online version of this article at http://www.ajph.org).

BENEFITS OF A SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

The benefits described subsequently are not an exhaustive list, but do represent the breadth of areas in which social media can increase the impact of public health research.

Disseminate Public Health Research

Posting links to scientific articles or media pieces on social media can expand readership to a wider audience; for example, three tweets about a Cochrane review increased hits to its webpage threefold, and readers linking to the Web page via Twitter spent threefold more time on the page than those arriving from other sources.³ Another study comparing views of two journal articles and a blog post summarizing the articles showed that the blog post was viewed approximately 30 000 times, which equated to more than 10 times as many views as either journal article.⁴ Although these findings are impressive, the reach of work shared on social media will depend on the size of the sharer’s audience (i.e., number of followers). If few people follow a social media account, reach may be limited. However, once a follower shares information, that follower’s audience can share it with others, expanding reach exponentially. Building an audience takes some work (see the appendix) but can pay big dividends.

Combat Misinformation

More than 70% of Internet users say that they look for health information online⁵; unfortunately, such searches often result in misinformation. Dr. Oz, lauded as “America’s doctor,” has millions of Twitter followers despite being widely criticized for making unsubstantiated health claims. Similarly, Dr. Mercola, another physician, has more than a million followers on Facebook despite being accused of false claims by the US Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission. An increased presence of public health experts on social media could increase the availability of accurate online health information, which might offset the impact of individuals making false claims and support fact checking efforts (e.g., @factcheckdotorg).

Influence Policy

Social media provides a way to share evidence for or against health policies with the public, policymakers, and other key stakeholders. Because politicians are motivated to please their constituents, using social media to educate constituents about proposed policies and encouraging them to contact political representatives to voice opinions can affect politicians’ actions. The president’s enormous Twitter following and use of Twitter to communicate directly with the public suggest that social media is increasingly relevant to discussions of policy and politics both in the United States and abroad.

Aid Public Health Research

Social media can be used for numerous research purposes, including surveillance activities and behavioral interventions.^6,7 Given social media’s ubiquitous use, lack of geographic barriers, and equal representation of traditionally underserved populations, study recruitment through social media has the potential to produce more representative study samples. Furthermore, patients increasingly use social media to connect with each other in public and private forums. Conversations in these online patient communities often center on health behaviors and probably provide more nuanced and realistic information about health-related attitudes and beliefs than traditional survey measures.

Enhance Professional Development

The increasing presence of academics, clinicians, industry professionals, public health departments, and health care systems on social media provides many opportunities for professional connection outside traditional settings. Several public health chats on Twitter allow public health researchers to engage with the public, including CDC chats and #hcsm (health care social media; see the appendix). In addition, social media–based metrics are becoming part of professional evaluations at many institutions, including the Mayo Clinic. Tools are available to evaluate social media impact, including Altmetric, which measures a study’s total mentions in media, social media, and blogs. Similarly, ImpactStory.org compiles information for a researcher’s total body of work. These tools are likely to become important features of promotion materials in the future.

CAUTIONS REGARDING SOCIAL MEDIA USE

Social media posts are generally public and create searchable records, so transgressed boundaries can have serious consequences, including termination of employment. Separating professional and private social media accounts, treating online interactions the same as other public interactions, and being informed about institutional policies (e.g., the Hatch Act for federal employees) can prevent complications. Many institutions have media or public affairs offices that can also provide advice. Even with highly professional feeds, the public nature of social media means that users may receive unwanted comments. In such cases, it can be helpful to disengage and use platform features to block or report inappropriate users or comments. A final consideration is time management: checking Twitter once a day is a nominal time commitment, but hosting a blog or managing multiple feeds may require professional training and assistance (see the appendix for additional information on time management).

CONCLUSIONS

Social media can be an important tool for public health researchers to disseminate their work, affect policy, conduct research, and engage in professional networking. Although social media use is not yet ubiquitous among public health researchers, it is among the general public and therefore provides an enormous opportunity for science communication. Developing a social media presence requires some time investment; however, the investment is likely to benefit the user, the field of public health, and the public at large.