The role of social influencers for effective public health communication

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiromani Gupta ◽  
Satya Bhusan Dash ◽  
Rachna Mahajan
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Health Communication ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Persuasive Communication ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Public Health Communication ◽  
Health Related

PurposeThe purpose of the study is to explore the suitability of social media influencers (SMIs) for communicating public health messages via social media platforms. The study identifies key persuasive communication components that influence individuals' attitudes and, subsequently, intentions to follow health-related information shared by SMIs.Design/methodology/approachQualitative interviews with healthcare workers and interactions with 332 active social media users via structured online questionnaires were used for data collection. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse responses.FindingsResults indicate that SMIs' credibility, SMI–individual homophily and quality of information shared by the SMI are the significant factors determining individuals' attitudes towards the information received. Furthermore, the individual's attitude significantly impacts their intention to follow information shared by the SMI. The study thus verifies the mediating role of attitude in persuasive communication.Research limitations/implicationsThe current study can serve as a foundation for future work to examine the suitability of SMIs for tasks other than marketing.Practical implicationsThe study provides insights for planning and implementing SMI-sourced communication in the public health context. The study enhances the understanding of the tested relationships and thereby increases scholars' and practitioners' ability to leverage SMIs for health-related communication.Originality/valueWhilst SMIs are attracting increasing attention in consumer markets, the study suggests that they can be used in public health communication. Considering the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) situation, the empirical study provides insights into SMIs' role in persuasive public health communication amid a health crisis.Peer reviewThe peer review history for the article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-01-2021-0012

scholarly journals A topic analysis of traditional and social media news coverage of the early COVID-19 pandemic and implications for public health communication

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wallace Chipidza ◽  
Elmira Akbaripourdibazar ◽  
Tendai Gwanzura ◽  
Nicole M. Gatto
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Health Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
Latent Dirichlet Allocation ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Cable News ◽  
Public Health Communication ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Public Health Officials

AbstractKnowledge gaps may initially exist among scientists, medical and public health professionals during pandemics, which are fertile grounds for misinformation in news media. We characterized and compared COVID-19 coverage in newspapers, television, and social media, and discussed implications for public health communication strategies that are relevant to an initial pandemic response. We conducted a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), an unsupervised topic modelling technique, analysis of 3,271 newspaper articles, 40 cable news shows transcripts, 96,000 Twitter posts, and 1,000 Reddit posts during March 4 - 12, 2020, a period chronologically early in the timeframe of the COVID-19 pandemic. Coverage of COVID-19 clustered on topics such as epidemic, politics, and the economy, and these varied across media sources. Topics dominating news were not predominantly health-related, suggesting a limited presence of public health in news coverage in traditional and social media. Examples of misinformation were identified particularly in social media. Public health entities should utilize communication specialists to create engaging informational content to be shared on social media sites. Public health officials should be attuned to their target audience to anticipate and prevent spread of common myths likely to exist within a population. This will help control misinformation in early stages of pandemics.

scholarly journals A topic analysis of traditional and social media news coverage of the early COVID-19 pandemic and implications for public health communication

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Wallace Chipidza ◽  
Elmira Akbaripourdibazar ◽  
Tendai Gwanzura ◽  
Nicole M. Gatto
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Health Communication ◽  
Latent Dirichlet Allocation ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Cable News ◽  
Public Health Communication ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Public Health Officials ◽  
Pandemic Response

ABSTRACT Objective: To characterize and compare early coverage of COVID-19 in newspapers, television, and social media, and discuss implications for public health communication strategies that are relevant to an initial pandemic response. Methods: Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), an unsupervised topic modelling technique, analysis of 3,271 newspaper articles, 40 cable news shows transcripts, 96,000 Twitter posts, and 1,000 Reddit posts during March 4 - 12, 2020, a period chronologically early in the timeframe of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: Coverage of COVID-19 clustered on topics such as epidemic, politics, and the economy, and these varied across media sources. Topics dominating news were not predominantly health-related, suggesting a limited presence of public health in news coverage in traditional and social media. Examples of misinformation were identified particularly in social media. Conclusions: Public health entities should utilize communication specialists to create engaging informational content to be shared on social media sites. Public health officials should be attuned to their target audience to anticipate and prevent spread of common myths likely to exist within a population. This may help control misinformation in early stages of pandemics.

scholarly journals The Use of 'No Evidence' Statements in Public Health

2015 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Cummings
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Risk ◽  
Health Communication ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Human Health Risk ◽  
Public Health Communication ◽  
The Public

Public health communication makes extensive use of a linguistic formulation that will be called the “no evidence” statement. This is a written or spoken statement of the form “There is no evidence that P” where P stands for a proposition that typically describes a human health risk. Danger lurks in these expressions for the hearer or reader who is not logically perspicacious, as arguments that use them are only warranted under certain conditions. The extent to which members of the public are able to determine what those conditions are will be considered by examining data obtained from 879 subjects. The role of “no evidence” statements as cognitive heuristics in public health reasoning is considered.

scholarly journals COVID-19 as an “Infodemic” in Public Health: Critical Role of the Social Media

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debanjan Banerjee ◽  
K. S. Meena
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Global Public Health ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
The Impact

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has emerged as a significant and global public health crisis. Besides the rising number of cases and fatalities, the outbreak has also affected economies, employment and policies alike. As billions are being isolated at their homes to contain the infection, the uncertainty gives rise to mass hysteria and panic. Amidst this, there has been a hidden epidemic of “information” that makes COVID-19 stand out as a “digital infodemic” from the earlier outbreaks. Repeated and detailed content about the virus, geographical statistics, and multiple sources of information can all lead to chronic stress and confusion at times of crisis. Added to this is the plethora of misinformation, rumor and conspiracy theories circulating every day. With increased digitalization, media penetration has increased with a more significant number of people aiding in the “information pollution.” In this article, we glance at the unique evolution of COVID-19 as an “infodemic” in the hands of social media and the impact it had on its spread and public reaction. We then look at the ways forward in which the role of social media (as well as other digital platforms) can be integrated into social and public health, for a better symbiosis, “digital balance” and pandemic preparedness for the ongoing crisis and the future.

scholarly journals Assessing the quality, readability and reliability of online information on COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. e3591210680
Author(s):  
Paulo Cardoso Lins-Filho ◽  
Millena Mirella Silva de Araújo ◽  
Thuanny Silva de Macêdo ◽  
Andressa Kelly Alves Ferreira ◽  
Maria Cecilia Freire de Melo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Risk Mitigation ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Reading Levels ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Content Quality ◽  
Flesch Reading Ease ◽  
Health Related

During a public health crisis, the dissemination of reliable information, advice and experts’ opinions is essential for improving public comprehension of potential or actual health threats and enables the public to take informed decisions about risk mitigation measures. This study aimed to assess the quality, reliability and readability of internet-based information on COVID-19 available on Brazil’ most used search engines. A total of 68 websites were selected through Google, Bing, and Yahoo. The websites content quality and reliability were evaluated using the DISCERN questionnaire, the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) criteria, and the presence of the Health on Net (HON) certification. Readability was assessed by the Flesch Reading Ease adapted to Brazilian Portuguese (FRE-BP). The web contents were considered moderate to low quality according to DISCERN and JAMA mean scores. Most of the sample presented very difficult reading levels and only 7.4% displayed HON certification. Websites of Governmental and health-related authorship nature showed lower JAMA mean scores and quality and readability measures did not correlate to the webpages content type. COVID-19 related contents available online were considered of low to moderate quality and not accessible to general population. These findings indicate the need for further efforts on improving the quality of health-related content on internet, especially during public health emergencies.

scholarly journals Spreading (Dis)Trust: Covid-19 Misinformation and Government Intervention in Italy

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 458-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Lovari
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Health Communication ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
General State ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Public Health Communication ◽  
Strategic Role ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
The Impact

The commentary focuses on the spread of Covid-19 misinformation in Italy, highlighting the dynamics that have impacted on its pandemic communication. Italy has recently been affected by a progressive erosion of trust in public institutions and a general state of information crisis regarding matters of health and science. In this context, the politicization of health issues and a growing use of social media to confront the Coronavirus “infodemic” have led the Italian Ministry of Health to play a strategic role in using its official Facebook page to mitigate the spread of misinformation and to offer updates to online publics. Despite this prompt intervention, which increased the visibility and reliability of public health communication, coordinated efforts involving different institutions, media and digital platform companies still seem necessary to reduce the impact of misinformation, as using a multichannel strategy helps avoid increasing social and technological disparities at a time of crisis.

scholarly journals Development of a Codebook of Online Anti-Vaccination Rhetoric to Manage COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Hughes ◽  
C. Miller-Idriss ◽  
R. Piltch-Loeb ◽  
K. White ◽  
M. Creizis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Health Communication ◽  
User Generated Content ◽  
Vaccine Hesitancy ◽  
Public Health Communication ◽  
Effective Public Health ◽  
Pandemic Vaccine ◽  
Qualitative Coding ◽  
Health Messaging

AbstractVaccine hesitancy (delay in obtaining a vaccine, despite availability) represents a significant hurdle to managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaccine hesitancy is in part related to the prevalence of anti-vaccine misinformation and disinformation, which are spread through social media and user-generated content platforms. This study uses qualitative coding methodology to identify salient narratives and rhetorical styles common to anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist media. It organizes these narratives and rhetorics according to theme, imagined antagonist, and frequency. Most frequent were narratives centered on “corrupt elites” and rhetorics appealing to the vulnerability of children. The identification of these narratives and rhetorics may assist in developing effective public health messaging campaigns, since narrative and emotion have demonstrated persuasive effectiveness in other public health communication settings.

Message sharing and verification behaviour on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic: a study in the context of India and the USA

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anumegha Sharma ◽  
Payal S. Kapoor
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Information Sharing ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Health Anxiety ◽  
Study Finding ◽  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Positive Polarity ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Message Type

PurposeTechnology has eased access to information. During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, ease of access and transmission of information via social media has led to ambiguity, misinformation and uncertainty. This research studies the aforementioned behaviours of information sharing and verification related to COVID-19, in the context of social media.Design/methodology/approachTwo studies have been carried out. Study 1, with Indian social media users, is a two-factor between-subjects experimental design that investigated the effect of message polarity (positive versus negative) and message type (news versus rumour) on the dissemination and verification behaviour of COVID-19-related messages. The study also investigated the mediation of perceived message importance and health anxiety. Study 2 is a replica study conducted with US users.FindingsThe study finding revealed significantly higher message sharing for news than rumour. Further, for the Indian users, message with positive polarity led to higher message sharing and message with negative polarity led to higher verification behaviour. On the contrary, for the US users, message with negative polarity led to higher message sharing and message with positive polarity led to higher verification behaviour. Finally, the study revealed message importance mediates the relationship of message type and message sharing behaviour for Indian and US users; however, health anxiety mediation was significant only for Indian users.Practical implicationsThe findings offer important implications related to information regulation during a health crisis. Unverified information sharing is harmful during a pandemic. The study sheds light on this behaviour such that stakeholders get insights and better manage the information being disseminated.Originality/valueThe study investigates the behaviour of sharing and verification of social media messages between users containing health information (news and rumour) related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-07-2020-0282

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