Quality of public health information: Lessons from the field

BACKGROUND Recent emergency authorisation and rollout of COVID-19 vaccines by regulatory bodies has generated global attention. As the most popular video-sharing platform globally, YouTube is a potent medium for dissemination of key public health information. Understanding the nature of available content regarding COVID-19 vaccination on this widely used platform is of substantial public health interest. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the reliability and quality of information of YouTube videos regarding COVID-19 vaccination. METHODS For this cross-sectional study, the phrases ‘coronavirus vaccine’ and ‘COVID-19 vaccine’ were searched on the UK version of YouTube on December 10, 2020. The 200 most-viewed videos of each search were extracted and screened for relevance and English language. Video content and characteristics were extracted and independently rated against Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct (HONCode) and DISCERN quality criteria for consumer health information by two authors. RESULTS Forty-eight videos, with a combined total view count of 30,100,561, were included in the analysis. Topics addressed comprised: vaccine science (58%), vaccine trials (58%), side effects (48%), efficacy (35%) and manufacturing (17%). Twenty-one percent of videos encouraged continued public health measures. Only 4.2% of videos made non-factual claims. Ninety-eight percent of video content was scored to have low (60%) or medium (38%) adherence to HONCode principles. Educational channels produced by both medical and non-medical professionals achieved significantly higher DISCERN scores than other categories. The highest DISCERN scores were achieved by educational videos produced by medical professionals (64.3 (58.5-66.3)) and the lowest scores by independent users (18 (18-20)). CONCLUSIONS Overall quality and reliability of information on YouTube regarding COVID-19 vaccines remains poor. Videos produced by educational channels, especially by medical professionals, were higher in quality and reliability than those produced by other sources, including health-related organisations. Collaboration between health-related organisations and established medical and educational YouTube content producers provide an opportunity for dissemination of high-quality information regarding COVID-19 vaccination. Such collaboration holds potential as a rapidly implementable public health intervention aiming to engage a wide audience and increase public awareness and knowledge.

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YouTube as a source of public health information regarding COVID-19 vaccination: an assessment of reliability and quality of video content (Preprint)

JMIR Public Health and Surveillance ◽

10.2196/29942 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Calvin Chan ◽

Viknesh Sounderajah ◽

Elisabeth Daniels ◽

Amish Acharya ◽

Jonathan Clarke ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Health Information ◽

Video Content ◽

Public Health Information

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Public Health Information Network Conference, August 27-29, 2007

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e614822007-005 ◽

2007 ◽

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Health Information ◽

Information Network ◽

Public Health Information

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eTick: A Lyme disease surveillance and public health information tool

10.1603/ice.2016.116167 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Jules Koffi

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Lyme Disease ◽

Health Information ◽

Disease Surveillance ◽

Public Health Information

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Japanese-language videos on YouTube as a source of public health information for COVID-19 (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.24655 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Takeo Yasu

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Health Information ◽

Scientific Evidence ◽

The State ◽

Video Content ◽

Sources Of Information ◽

State Of Emergency ◽

Public Health Information ◽

Youtube Videos ◽

Spread Of Infection

BACKGROUND Serious public health problems, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, can cause an infodemic. Sources of information that may cause an infodemic include social networking services; YouTube, which consists of content created and uploaded by individuals, is one such source. OBJECTIVE To survey the content and changes in YouTube videos that present public health information about COVID-19 in Japan. METHODS We surveyed YouTube content regarding public health information pertaining to COVID-19 in Japan. YouTube searches were performed on March 6, 2020 (before the state of emergency), April 14 (during the state of emergency), and May 27 (after the state of emergency was lifted), with 136, 113, and 140 sample videos evaluated, respectively. The main outcome measures were: (1) The total number of views for each video, (2) video content, and (3) the usefulness of the video. RESULTS In the 100 most viewed YouTube videos during the three periods, the number of videos on public health information in March was significantly higher than in May (p = .02). Of the 331 unique videos, 9.1% (n = 30) were released by healthcare professionals. Useful videos providing public health information about the prevention of the spread of infection comprised only 13.0% of the sample but were viewed significantly more often than not useful videos (p = .006). CONCLUSIONS Individuals need to take care when obtaining information from YouTube before or early in a pandemic, during which time scientific evidence is scarce.

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