Tweet for behavior change: Using social media for the dissemination of public health messages

JMIR Public Health and Surveillance

Volumn 3, Issue 1, 2017, Pages

  Gough, Aisling ^a   Hunter, Ruth F ^b   Ajao, Oluwaseun ^b   Jurek, Anna ^b   McKeown, Gary ^b   Hong, Jun ^b   Barrett, Eimear ^b   Ferguson, Marbeth ^c   McElwee, Gerry ^c   McCarthy, Miriam ^d   Kee, Frank ^b  

^a QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY BELFAST   (United Kingdom)

^b QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY BELFAST   (United Kingdom)

^c Cancer Focus Northern Ireland   (United Kingdom)

^d PUBLIC HEALTH AGENCY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Awareness; Behavior change; Communication; Public heath; Skin cancer; Social media; Twitter

Indexed keywords

EID: 85102333242     PISSN: None     EISSN: 23692960     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2196/publichealth.6313     Document Type: Article

References (76)

1. Kaplan A, Haenlein M. Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media. Bus Horiz 2010 Jan;53(1):59-68. [doi: 10.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003]
2. Syred J, Naidoo C, Woodhall SC, Baraitser P. Would you tell everyone this? Facebook conversations as health promotion interventions. J Med Internet Res 2014 Apr 11;16(4):e108 [FREE Full text] [doi: 10.2196/jmir.3231] [Medline: 24727742]
3. Perrin A. Pew Research Center. Social Networking Usage URL:http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/08/ social-networking-usage-2005-2015/ [accessed 2017-03-02] [WebCite Cache ID 6ofC9xmEt]
4. Twitter. URL:https://about.twitter.com/company [accessed 2017-03-02] [WebCite Cache ID 6ofCCQPbz]
5. Facebook. Facebook usage URL:http://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/ [accessed 2017-03-02] [WebCite Cache ID 6ofCHq9ot]
6. Duggan M, Ellison N, Lampe C, Lenhart A, Madden M. Pew Research Center. 2016. Social Media Update 2014 URL:http:/ /www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/social-media-update-2014/ [accessed 2017-03-02] [WebCite Cache ID 6ofCKuc9j]
7. Public Health England Social Marketing Strategy 2014-2017: One year on. -05-06. 2016. July 2015 URL:https://www. gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/445524/Marketing_report_web.pdf [accessed 2017-03-02] [WebCite Cache ID 6ofCMqkU7]
8. Schein R, Wilson K, Keelan J. A report for Peel public health. Literature review on effectiveness of the use of social media URL:https://www.peelregion.ca/health/resources/pdf/socialmedia.pdf [accessed 2017-03-02] [WebCite Cache ID 6ofCS9ZUv]
9. Kietzmann J, Hermkens K, McCarthy I, Silvestre B. Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Bus Horiz 2011 May;54(3):241-251. [doi: 10.1016/j.bushor.2011.01.005]
10. 2012. NHS UK. Using social media to engage, listen and learn. Smart Guides to Engagement URL:https://www. networks.nhs.uk/nhs-networks/smart-guides/documents/ Using%20social%20media%20to%20engage-%20listen%20and%20learn.pdf [accessed 2017-03-02] [WebCite Cache ID 6ofCfUbsp]
11. Deller R, Tilton S. Selfies as charitable meme: charity and notational identity in the #nomakeupselfie and #thunbsupforstephen campaign. Int J Comm 2015;9:1788-1805.
12. George D, Rovniak L, Kraschnewski J. Dangers and opportunities for social media in medicine. Clin Obstet Gynecol 2013;56(3). [doi: 10.1097/GRF.0b013e318297dc38]
13. Neiger B, Thackery R, Burton S, Giraud-Carrier C, Fagen M. Evaluating social media's capacity to develop engaged audiences in health promotion settings: use of Twitter metrics as a case study. Health Promot Pract 2013;14(2):157-162. [doi: 10.1177/1524839912469378]
14. Chou W, Prestin A, Lyons C, Wen K. Web 2.0 for health promotion: reviewing the current evidence. Am J Public Health 2013 Jan;103(1):e9-e18. [doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2012.301071]
15. Heldman A, Schindelar J, Weaver IJ. Social media engagement and public health communication: implications for public health organizations being truly “social”. Public Health Rev 2013;35(1):1.
16. Griffiths F, Lindenmeyer A, Powell J, Lowe P, Thorogood M. Why are health care interventions delivered over the internet? A systematic review of the published literature. J Med Internet Res 2006 Jun 23;8(2):e10 [FREE Full text] [doi: 10.2196/jmir.8.2.e10] [Medline: 16867965]
17. Thackeray R, Neiger B, Hanson C, McKenzie J. Enhancing promotional strategies within social marketing programs: use of Web 2.0 social media. Health Promot Pract 2008 Oct;9(4):338-343. [doi: 10.1177/1524839908325335]
18. Korda H, Itani Z. Harnessing social media for health promotion and behavior change. Health Promot Pract 2013 Jan;14(1):15-23. [doi: 10.1177/1524839911405850] [Medline: 21558472]
19. Pagoto S, Waring M, May C, Ding E, Kunz W, Hayes R, et al. Adapting behavioral interventions for social media delivery. J Med Internet Res 2016 Jan 29;18(1):e24 [FREE Full text] [doi: 10.2196/jmir.5086] [Medline: 26825969]
20. Milton N. Nickmilton. 2014. Why knowledge transfer through discussion is 14 times more effective than writing URL:http:/ /www.nickmilton.com/2014/10/why-knowledge-transfer-through.html [accessed 2017-03-02] [WebCite Cache ID 6ofDiUH5u]
21. Kofinas J, Varrey A, Sapra K, Kanj R, Chervenak F, Asfaw T. Adjunctive social media for more effective contraceptive counseling: a randomized controlled trial. Obstet Gynecol 2014;123(4):763-770. [doi: 10.1097/AOG.0000000000000172]
22. Schnitzler K, Davies N, Ross F, Harris R. Using Twitter™ to drive research impact: a discussion of strategies, opportunities and challenges. Int J Nurs Stud 2016 Jul;59:15-26. [doi: 10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2016.02.004]
23. Laranjo L, Arguel A, Neves A, Gallagher A, Kaplan R, Mortimer N, et al. The influence of social networking sites on health behavior change: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Am Med Inform Assoc 2014 Jul 08;22(1):243-256. [doi: 10.1136/amiajnl-2014-002841]
24. Signorini A, Segre AM, Polgreen PM. The use of Twitter to track levels of disease activity and public concern in the U.S. during the influenza A H1N1 pandemic. PLoS One 2011 May 04;6(5):e19467 [FREE Full text] [doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019467] [Medline: 21573238]
25. Lefebvre RC, Bornkessel AS. Digital social networks and health. Circulation 2013 Apr 30;127(17):1829-1836 [FREE Full text] [doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.112.000897] [Medline: 23630086]
26. Department for Health, Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS). Skin cancer prevention - strategy and action plan (2011-2021). Department of Health, UK 2011 [FREE Full text]
27. Donnelly DW, Gavin AT. Northern Ireland Cancer Registry. 2015. Cancer incidence trends 1993-2013 with projections to 2035 URL:https://www.qub.ac.uk/research-centres/nicr/FileStore/PDF/NIrelandReports/Filetoupload,531911,en.pdf [accessed 2017-03-08] [WebCite Cache ID 6oo1HXctO]
28. Montague M, Borland R, Sinclair C. Slip! Slop! Slap! and SunSmart, 1980-2000: Skin cancer control and 20 years of population-based campaigning. Health Educ Behav 2001 Jun;28(3):290-305. [doi: 10.1177/109019810102800304] [Medline: 11380050]
29. Miles A, Waller J, Hiom S, Swanston D. SunSmart? Skin cancer knowledge and preventive behaviour in a British population representative sample. Health Educ Res 2005 Oct;20(5):579-585 [FREE Full text] [doi: 10.1093/her/cyh010] [Medline: 15644381]
30. Eysenbach G. CONSORT-EHEALTH: improving and standardizing evaluation reports of Web-based and mobile health interventions. J Med Internet Res 2011 Dec 31;13(4):e126 [FREE Full text] [doi: 10.2196/jmir.1923] [Medline: 22209829]
31. Lister C, Royne M, Payne HE, Cannon B, Hanson C, Barnes M. The Laugh Model: reframing and rebranding public health through social media. Am J Public Health 2015 Nov;105(11):2245-2251. [doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2015.302669] [Medline: 26378824]
32. Eysenbach G. Improving the quality of Web surveys: the Checklist for Reporting Results of Internet E-Surveys (CHERRIES). J Med Internet Res 2004 Sep 29;6(3):e34 [FREE Full text] [doi: 10.2196/jmir.6.3.e34] [Medline: 15471760]
33. Carroll C, Booth A, Leaviss J, Rick J. “Best fit” framework synthesis: refining the method. BMC Med Res Methodol 2013;13(1):1. [doi: 10.1186/1471-2288-13-37]
34. Lee EC, Whitehead AL, Jacques RM, Julious SA. The statistical interpretation of pilot trials: should significance thresholds be reconsidered? BMC Med Res Methodol 2014 Mar 20;14(1):41 [FREE Full text] [doi: 10.1186/1471-2288-14-41] [Medline: 24650044]
35. NISRA.: Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency; 2012. Census 2011: Key Statistics for Northern Ireland URL:http:/ /www.nisra.gov.uk/Census/key_stats_bulletin_2011.pdf [accessed 2017-03-02] [WebCite Cache ID 6ofGnRk0e]
36. NISRA. Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency; 2012. Census 2011: Population and Household Estimates for Local Government Districts in Northern Ireland URL:http://www.nisra.gov.uk/Census/pop_stats_bulletin_2_2011.pdf [accessed 2017-03-02] [WebCite Cache ID 6ofGsX8mm]
37. Hatch EE, Hahn KA, Wise LA, Mikkelsen EM, Kumar R, Fox MP, et al. Evaluation of selection bias in an internet-based study of pregnancy planners. Epidemiology 2016 Jan;27(1):98-104 [FREE Full text] [doi: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000000400] [Medline: 26484423]
38. Hollier L, Pettigrew S, Slevin T, Strickland M, Minto C. Comparing online and telephone survey results in the context of a skin cancer prevention campaign evaluation. J Public Health 2016;10:1-9. [doi: 10.1093/pubmed/fdw018]
39. Gallagher K, Updegraff J. Health message framing effects on attitudes, intentions, and behavior: a meta-analytic review. Ann Behav Med 2011 Oct 13;43(1):101-116. [doi: 10.1007/s12160-011-9308-7]
40. O'Keefe D, Wu D. Gain-framed messages do not motivate sun protection: a meta-analytic review of randomized trials comparing gain-framed and loss-framed appeals for promoting skin cancer prevention. Int J Environ Res Public Health 2012 Jun 05;9(12):2121-2133. [doi: 10.3390/ijerph9062121]
41. Hammond D. Health warning messages on tobacco products: a review. Tob Control 2011;20:327-337 [FREE Full text] [doi: 10.1136/tc.2010.037630]
42. Mays D, Niaura R, Evans W, Hammond D, Luta G, Tercyak K. Cigarette packaging and health warnings: the impact of plain packaging and message framing on young smokers. Tob Control 2014 [FREE Full text] [doi: 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2013-051234]
43. Dunlop S, Wakefield M, Kashima Y. Can you feel it? Negative emotion, risk, and narrative in health communication. Media Psychol 2008 Mar 21;11(1):52-75. [doi: 10.1080/15213260701853112]
44. Paek H, Oh S, Hove T. How fear-arousing news messages affect risk perceptions and intention to talk about risk. Health Commun 2016;31(9):1051-1062. [doi: 10.1080/10410236.2015.1037419]
45. Witte K, Allen M. A meta-analysis of fear appeals: implications for effective public health campaigns. Health Educ Behav 2000;27(5):591-615. [doi: 10.1177/109019810002700506]
46. Leshner G, Bolls P, Thomas E. Scare' em or disgust 'em: the effects of graphic health promotion messages. Health Commun 2009 Jul;24(5):447-458. [doi: 10.1080/10410230903023493] [Medline: 19657827]
47. Cho H, Salmon CT. Unintended effects of health communication campaigns. J Commun 2007 Jun;57(2):293-317. [doi: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.2007.00344.x]
48. Bail CA. Emotional feedback and the viral spread of social media messages about Autism spectrum disorders. Am J Public Health 2016 Jul;106(7):1173-1180. [doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2016.303181] [Medline: 27196641]
49. Ramdhani I. NTUST. Motives of twitter users to retweet URL:http://pc01.lib.ntust.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/ view_etd?URN=etd-0716112-105845 [accessed 2017-03-03] [WebCite Cache ID 6ogjdgf0k]
50. Kandadai V, Yang H, Jiang L, Yang C, Fleisher L, Winston F. Measuring health information dissemination and identifying target interest communities on Twitter: methods development and case study of the @SafetyMD network. JMIR Res Protoc 2016 May 05;5(2):e50. [doi: 10.2196/resprot.4203]
51. Brett B. The New York Times. The psychology of sharing URL:http://nytmarketing.whsites.net/mediakit/pos/ [accessed 2017-03-03] [WebCite Cache ID 6ogjj4uCI]
52. The New York Times. Social Bakers, 2015 URL:http://nytmarketing.whsites.net/mediakit/pos/ [accessed 2017-03-03] [WebCite Cache ID 6ogjjrkDq]
53. Bakshy E, Hofman J, Mason W, Watts D. Everyone's an influencer: quantifying influence on twitter. 2011 Presented at: InProceedings of the fourth ACM international conference on Web searchdata mining; February 9, 2011; Hong Kong, China p. 65-74. [doi: 10.1145/1935826.1935845]
54. Romero D, Galuba W, Asur S, Huberman B. Influence and passivity in social media. In: Machine learning and knowledge discovery in databases. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag; 2011:18-33.
55. Remy C, Pervin N, Toriumi F, Takeda H. Information Diffusion on Twitter: Everyone has its chance, but all chances are not equal. 2013 Dec 05 Presented at: Signal-Image Technology & Internet-Based Systems (SITIS), International Conference on Dec 2 (pp. ). IEEE; 2013; Washington, DC p. 483-490. [doi: 10.1109/SITIS.2013.84]
56. Yang J, Counts S. Predicting the Speed, Scale, and Range of Information Diffusion in Twitter. 2010 May 10 Presented at: ICWSM; May 10, 2010; Washington, DC p. 10-18.
57. Suh B, Hong L, Pirolli P, Chi E. Want to be retweeted? large scale analytics on factors impacting retweet in twitter network. In: SOCIALCOM '10 Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE Second International Conference on Social Computing. 2010 Presented at: IEEE Second International Conference on Social Computing; August 20, 2010; Washington, DC p. 177-184. [doi: 10.1109/SocialCom.2010.33]
58. Naveed N, Gottron T, Kunegis J, Alhadi A. Bad news travel fast: A content-based analysis of interestingness on twitter. 2011 Jun 15 Presented at: The 3rd International Web Science Conference; June 15, 2011; Koblenz, Germany.
59. Wang F, Wang H, Xu K. Diffusive logistic model towards predicting information diffusion in online social networks. 2012 Presented at: 2012 32nd International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems Workshops; June 18, 2012; Macau, China p. 133-139. [doi: 10.1109/ICDCSW.2012.16]
60. Hong L, Dan O, Davison B. Predicting popular messages in twitter. 2011 Presented at: 20th international conference companion on World wide web; March 28, 2011; Hyderabad, India p. 57-58.
61. Yang J, Leskovec J. Modeling information diffusion in implicit networks. 2010 Dec Presented at: IEEE 10th International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM); 2010; University of Technology Sydney, Australia p. 599-608. [doi: 10.1109/ICDM.2010.22]
62. Moz Blog.: Moz Blog; 2012. When Is My Tweet's Prime of Life? (A brief statistical interlude) URL:https://moz.com/blog/ when-is-my-tweets-prime-of-life [accessed 2016-05-06] [WebCite Cache ID 6oglpXN2C]
63. Cobb N, Jacobs M, Wileyto P, Valente T, Graham A. Diffusion of an evidence-based smoking cessation intervention through Facebook: a randomized controlled trial. Am J Public Health 2016;106(6):1130-1135. [doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2016.303106]
64. Tufekci Z. Big questions for social media big data: Representativeness, validity and other methodological pitfalls. In: ICWSM '14: Proceedings of the 8th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, 2014. 2014 Mar 28 Presented at: 8th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media; 2014; Ann Arbor, Michigan.
65. Wu YP, Aspinwall LG, Conn BM, Stump T, Grahmann B, Leachman SA. A systematic review of interventions to improve adherence to melanoma preventive behaviors for individuals at elevated risk. Prev Med 2016 Jul;88:153-167. [doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2016.04.010]
66. Kozinets R. The field behind the screen: using netnography for marketing research in online communities. J Mark Res 2002;39(1):61-72.
67. Hannak A, Anderson E, Barrett L, Lehmann S, Mislove A, Riedewald M. Tweetin'in the Rain: Exploring Societal-Scale Effects of Weather on Mood. In: Sixth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media. 2012 Presented at: Sixth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media; June 4-7, 2012; Dublin, Ireland.
68. Wood I. The mixed emotions of Twitter. 2016 Presented at: Twitter for Research Conference; April 20, 2016; Galway, Ireland.
69. Freeman B, Potente S, Rock V, McIver J. Social media campaigns that make a difference: what can public health learn from the corporate sector and other social change marketers? Public Health Res Pract 2015;25(2).
70. NICE. 2016. NICE Guidelines NG34 Sunlight exposure: risks and benefits, February 2016 URL:https://www.nice.org.uk/ guidance/ng34 [accessed 2017-03-03] [WebCite Cache ID 6ogmU9gcW]
71. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Atlanta Social media at CDC: Twitter URL:https://www.cdc.gov/socialmedia/ tools/twitter.html [accessed 2017-03-03] [WebCite Cache ID 6ogmgWVhT]
72. McKee R. Ethical issues in using social media for health and health care research. Health Policy 2013 May;110(2-3):298-301. [doi: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2013.02.006] [Medline: 23477806]
73. Zimmer M. “But the data is already public”: on the ethics of research in Facebook. Ethics Inf Technol 2010 Jun 4;12(4):313-325. [doi: 10.1007/s10676-010-9227-5]
74. Spiro E. Research opportunities at the intersection of social media and survey data. Curr Opin Psychol 2016 Jun;9:67-71. [doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.10.023]
75. Kramer AD, Guillory JE, Hancock JT. Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2014 Presented at: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, PNAS; June 17, 2014; USA p. 8788-8790. [doi: 10.1073/pnas.1320040111]
76. Journal of Medical Internet Research. Journal of Medical Internet Research. E-collection: Ethics, Privacy, and Legal Issues. Journal of Medical Internet Research URL:http://www.jmir.org/themes/37 [accessed 2017-03-03] [WebCite Cache ID 6ogrYrLps]