Twitter and other social media should be better utilized to convey
public health messages, especially to young adults, according to a new
analysis by researchers at UC San Francisco.
The analysis focused on public conversations on the social media site
Twitter around one health issue: indoor tanning beds, which are
associated with an increased risk of skin cancer. The researchers
assessed the frequency of Twitter mentions related to indoor tanning and
tanning health risks during a two week period in 2013. During that
timeframe, more than 154,000 tweets (English language) mentioned indoor
tanning – amounting to 7.7 tweets per minute. But fewer than 10 percent
mentioned any of the health risks, such as skin cancer, that have been
linked to indoor tanning.
That offers a potentially valuable forum for conveying important health
information directly to the people who might benefit the most from it,
but the authors said further research is needed to explore whether that
would be effective.
via UCSF.
Link to original article here.
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