Social Media and Health: Finding the Best Health Information
Published Wednesday, January 22, 2020
By Sara Chow, Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre
How many times have you Googled a health issue? Me too. Here’s a simple tip: To learn more about health and health treatments from credible sources, follow hospitals and credible health care organizations on social media. They are gif-ing a lot of accurate and helpful health information this way.
Recently, the American Medical Association wrote that social media has the potential to improve health outcomes. This was in response to research that showed that 40% of Internet users who searched for health information online felt that the information they found affected how they interacted with the health care system. Additionally, there is a growing concern about the public conversations with misleading information that are occurring on social media platforms about health and the power they have had at population health levels (i.e. the re-emergence of vaccine-preventable diseases). Therefore, with an increased presence in social media, health care providers have a great opportunity to be part of the discussions, and to also provide accurate health information that could potentially benefit health outcomes.
Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre is among other leading health care organizations, such as the Cleveland Clinic and the Mayo Clinic, to provide health education to the public via social media channels. These organizations are leaders on social media because they are sharing more than just information about their brand, they are taking a consumer-centred approach to communicating important health information to their audiences.
With all of the different ways of engaging an audience on social media platforms, providing health information doesn’t have to be boring. Daily top health tips and quizzes about interesting health information from the Cleveland Clinic’s Instagram stories provide their audience with a fun way to learn about everything from vitamin deficiencies to dermatology and signs and symptoms of health issues. The Mayo Clinic offers followers the chance to ask health professionals questions about a specific health topic, or even a profession, in a confidential way via the Instagram questions sticker. It’s just putting a health spin on engaging with followers the same way celebrities, popular brands and foodies do on their social media channels.
On a weekly basis our Hospital creates a health quiz on Instagram stories that helps to increase health education and information. Recently, the Maternity Centre did an Instagram story takeover where followers could do myth/fact quizzes about different maternity topics and also could ask the lactation consultant and nurse practitioner their health questions and get answers via video (these can still be seen in our Maternity highlights on Instagram). In a different week, followers on Instagram and Facebook had their questions about breast reconstruction answered by Dr. Azad, a local plastic surgeon too.
You can find some of the best health information from our Hospital by following our social media accounts.
Instagram: @TBRHSC
Facebook: Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre
Twitter: @TBRHSC_NWO
LinkedIn: Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre