Factors Influencing User Engagement of Health Information Disseminated by Chinese Provincial Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on WeChat: Observational Study

Abstract

Background Social media is currently becoming a new channel for information acquisition and exchange. In China, with the growing popularity of WeChat and WeChat official accounts (WOAs), health promotion agencies have an opportunity to use them for successful information distribution and diffusion online. Objective We aimed to identify features of articles pushed by WOAs of Chinese provincial Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that are associated with user engagement. Methods We searched and subscribed to 28 WOAs of provincial CDCs. Data for this study consisted of WeChat articles on these WOAs between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2017. We developed a features frame containing title type, article content, article type, communication skills, number of marketing elements, and article length for each article and coded the data quantitatively using a coding scheme that assigned numeric values to article features. We examined the descriptive characteristics of articles for every WOA and generated descriptive statistics for six article features. The amount of reading and liking was converted into the level of reading and liking by the 75% position. Two-category univariate logistic regression and multivariable logistic regression were conducted to explore associations between the features of the articles and user engagement, operationalized as reading level and liking level. Results All provincial CDC WOAs provided a total of 5976 articles in 2017. Shanghai CDC articles attracted the most user engagement, and Ningxia CDC articles attracted the least. For all articles, the median reading was 551.5 and the median liking was 10. Multivariable logistic regression analysis revealed that article content, article type, communication skills, number of marketing elements, and article length were associated with reading level and liking level. However, title type was only associated with liking level. Conclusions How social media can be used to best achieve health information dissemination and public health outcomes is a topic of much discussion and study in the public health community. Given the lack of related studies based on WeChat or official accounts, we conducted this study and found that article content, article type, communication skills, number of marketing elements, article length, and title type were associated with user engagement. Our study may provide public health and community leaders with insight into the diffusion of important health topics of concern.

Influencing Factors on Health Information to Improve Public Health Literacy in the Official WeChat Account of Guangzhou CDC

“…The median of the top three post views was chronic disease, nutrition and food-borne disease, and infectious disease, which indicated that these topics were more appealing to readers. This finding was almost the same as the prior study, which revealed that articles about infectious disease, food safety and nutrition, vaccination, and health life style were inclined to get more post views ( 28 ). It hinted that these kinds of issues should be strengthened in the OWA health information in future.…”

“…In addition, the current results revealed that popular science articles were also popular with users, such as an article entitled “Running hot spots.” Our study showed that people liked to share posts with hot spots to their moments and friends, however it did not result in or contribute to higher amounts of post views and adds to favorites. A previous study demonstrated that articles with just hot spots were less likely to obtain high-level reading and liking than those with none ( 28 ). In other words, it implied that posts with hot spots should still be combined with high quality content ( 31 ), headlines, and other marketing elements ( 28 ) to achieve a better propagation effect.…”

A Social Media–Promoted Educational Community of Joint Replacement Patients Using the WeChat App: Survey Study

“…Herein, we described a novel smartphone-based community approach for rehabilitation guidance and medical support in postoperative patients. This nonrandomized study showed that a social media-enhanced educational community is an effective Social media can influence lifestyle, including health behavior [23], especially for large groups of people [24]. In our study, 2292 out of 3428 (66.86%) patients who underwent joint replacement surgery were willing to participate in the WeChat-based community to evaluate the quality and the effect of postoperative care via the internet.…”

Association between supportive attitude and adoptive practice of control strategy against COVID-19 amosng college students in China: a cross-sectional study

“…Postgraduate students had a slightly higher supportive attitude about the NPI strategy than that of undergraduate students. Studies on Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)-related knowledge, preventive behaviors, and risk perception among nursing students during the MERS outbreak showed that senior nursing students and female students had a supportive attitude and practice of measures to control MERS [ 20 – 22 ]. These studies suggest that intelligence has a positive effect on the attitude towards a health strategy.…”