Social media as a resource for disseminating health knowledge to high-risk youth in a medically underserved urban midwestern community

Background: Social media use has grown substantially in the last decade, particularly among youth. Health organizations have capitalized on this interest by using social media to promote health; however such use among teens has been underexplored. This project seeks to examine the effectiveness of social media to disseminate health information to high-risk youth in a medically underserved, resource-poor urban community.

Methods: Twenty-two teens, trained as peer Ambassadors through a Kresge Foundation community project, will assist in creating and reviewing approved health information to disseminate through two social media accounts over eight weeks. Each week, daily posts will cover the following topics which pertain to high-risk behaviors and are of interest to teens: stress, community violence/safety, self-esteem, physical activity and nutrition, substance abuse prevention, sexual education.  

Results: A survey of thirteen teen Ambassadors identified teens’ interest and willingness to utilize social media to learn about health information (92%) and share with peers (100%).  Social media results will be analyzed for reach, engagement, and influence by examining number of followers, photo/topic likes, comments made on media/retweets, clicks on images and videos, and rate of growth over time. Effective dissemination will be defined as growth of engagement by 10% weekly with at least fifty followers on each site at the end of eight weeks.

Conclusions: Effective use of social media represents a critical opportunity to disseminate health information to urban youth. This work may provide guidance for future public health efforts seeking to utilize social media.