Does social media provide adequate health education for prevention of COVID-19? A case study of YouTube videos on social distancing and hand-washing

Abstract

Social media offers an opportune platform for educating the public about the recommended interventions during global health emergencies. This case study evaluated information in the popular social media platform YouTube about two key interventions (namely, ‘social distancing’ and ‘hand washing’) recommended during coronavirus disease-2019. Using the keywords ‘social distancing’ and ‘hand washing’, 77 and 78 videos, respectively, were selected from YouTube through pre-defined criteria. The understandability, actionability and quality of information in these videos were assessed. Cumulatively, the social distancing videos received >9 million views and the hand-washing videos received >37 million views. Thirteen social distancing videos (16.9%) and 46 hand-washing videos (58.9%) provided understandable, actionable and good-quality information. The non-understandable, non-actionable or poor-quality videos had paradoxically more viewer engagements than the understandable, actionable or good-quality videos, respectively. Most social distancing videos came from news agencies (68.8%). Hand-washing videos were mostly uploaded by health agencies or academic institutes (52.6%). The videos were less likely to be understandable and actionable and to be of good quality when uploaded by sources other than health agencies or academic institutes. The paucity of adequate information and the limited representation of ‘authoritative’ sources were concerning. Strategies for harnessing social media as an effective medium for public health education are necessary during pandemics.

Assessing COVID-19 Health Literacy (CoHL) and its relationships with sociodemographic features, locus of control and compliance with social distancing rules during the first lockdown in France

“…Nevertheless, information available on the Internet is not always reliable, and the user engagement of the information (e.g. the number of downloads of the COVID-19-related YouTube videos) is not associated with the reliability of information [ 2 ]. Therefore, it is critical for individuals to have the capacity to differentiate high- versus low-quality health information, obtain accurate information, process and understand information to develop behaviors that allow them to protect themselves and others against the virus.…”

Promoting Health Education through Mobile Apps: A Quantitative Analysis of American Hospitals

“…As for social media platforms, we considered them because they are a useful tool for hospitals’ health education campaigns, allowing for: disseminating information, organizing online consultations, etc. [ 43 ]. Finally, we analyzed mobile apps because these tools allow hospitals to make their health education campaigns more dynamic and creative [ 28 ].…”

Bibliometric analyses of social media for educational purposes over four decades

“…The pandemic has greatly increased the frequency of access to social media to share opinions, concerns, and experiences, where people could collaborate in learning to address the educational issue during the lockdown (Johnstone and Towbin, 2022). The COVID-19 pandemic requires the strategies of use of social media in medical fields to contain the pandemic (Bora et al, 1800). Future researchers could thus figure out how to improve the online, remote, or blended educational outcomes using social media, especially during the unpredictable pandemic time.…”