Carl L. Hanson

Enhancing Promotional Strategies Within Social Marketing Programs: Use of Web 2.0 Social Media:

The second generation of Internet-based applications (i.e., Web 2.0), in which users control communication, holds promise to significantly enhance promotional efforts within social marketing campaigns. Web 2.0 applications can directly engage consumers in the creative process by both producing and distributing information through collaborative writing, content sharing, social networking, social bookmarking, and syndication. Web 2.0 can also enhance the power of viral marketing by increasing the speed at which consumers share experiences and opinions with progressively larger audiences. Because of the novelty and potential effectiveness of Web 2.0, social marketers may be enticed to prematurely incorporate related applications into promotional plans. However, as strategic issues such as priority audience preferences, selection of appropriate applications, tracking and evaluation, and related costs are carefully considered, Web 2.0 will expand to allow health promotion practitioners more direct access to consumers with less dependency on traditional communication channels.

Use of social media in health promotion: purposes, key performance indicators, and evaluation metrics.

Despite the expanding use of social media, little has been published about its appropriate role in health promotion, and even less has been written about evaluation. The purpose of this article is threefold: (a) outline purposes for social media in health promotion, (b) identify potential key performance indicators associated with these purposes, and (c) propose evaluation metrics for social media related to the key performance indicators. Process evaluation is presented in this article as an overarching evaluation strategy for social media.

There’s an App for That: Content Analysis of Paid Health and Fitness Apps

Background The introduction of Apple’s iPhone provided a platform for developers to design third-party apps, which greatly expanded the functionality and utility of mobile devices for public health. Objective This study provides an overview of the developers’ written descriptions of health and fitness apps and appraises each app’s potential for influencing behavior change. Methods Data for this study came from a content analysis of health and fitness app descriptions available on iTunes during February 2011. The Health Education Curriculum Analysis Tool (HECAT) and the Precede-Proceed Model (PPM) were used as frameworks to guide the coding of 3336 paid apps. Results Compared to apps with a cost less than US

Tracking suicide risk factors through Twitter in the US.

0.99, apps exceeding US

Tweaking and Tweeting: Exploring Twitter for Nonmedical Use of a Psychostimulant Drug (Adderall) Among College Students

0.99 were more likely to be scored as intending to promote health or prevent disease (92.55%, 1925/3336 vs 83.59%, 1411/3336; P<.001), to be credible or trustworthy (91.11%, 1895/3336 vs 86.14%, 1454/3349; P<.001), and more likely to be used personally or recommended to a health care client (72.93%, 1517/2644 vs 66.77%, 1127/2644; P<.001). Apps related to healthy eating, physical activity, and personal health and wellness were more common than apps for substance abuse, mental and emotional health, violence prevention and safety, and sexual and reproductive health. Reinforcing apps were less common than predisposing and enabling apps. Only 1.86% (62/3336) of apps included all 3 factors (ie, predisposing, enabling, and reinforcing). Conclusions Development efforts could target public health behaviors for which few apps currently exist. Furthermore, practitioners should be cautious when promoting the use of apps as it appears most provide health-related information (predisposing) or make attempts at enabling behavior, with almost none including all theoretical factors recommended for behavior change.

An Exploration of Social Circles and Prescription Drug Abuse Through Twitter

BACKGROUND Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States. Social media such as Twitter is an emerging surveillance tool that may assist researchers in tracking suicide risk factors in real time. AIMS To identify suicide-related risk factors through Twitter conversations by matching on geographic suicide rates from vital statistics data. METHOD At-risk tweets were filtered from the Twitter stream using keywords and phrases created from suicide risk factors. Tweets were grouped by state and departures from expectation were calculated. The values for suicide tweeters were compared against national data of actual suicide rates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. RESULTS A total of 1,659,274 tweets were analyzed over a 3-month period with 37,717 identified as at-risk for suicide. Midwestern and western states had a higher proportion of suicide-related tweeters than expected, while the reverse was true for southern and eastern states. A strong correlation was observed between state Twitter-derived data and actual state age-adjusted suicide data. CONCLUSION Twitter may be a viable tool for real-time monitoring of suicide risk factors on a large scale. This study demonstrates that individuals who are at risk for suicide may be detected through social media.

Use and Acceptance of Social Media Among Health Educators

Background Adderall is the most commonly abused prescription stimulant among college students. Social media provides a real-time avenue for monitoring public health, specifically for this population. Objective This study explores discussion of Adderall on Twitter to identify variations in volume around college exam periods, differences across sets of colleges and universities, and commonly mentioned side effects and co-ingested substances. Methods Public-facing Twitter status messages containing the term “Adderall” were monitored from November 2011 to May 2012. Tweets were examined for mention of side effects and other commonly abused substances. Tweets from likely students containing GPS data were identified with clusters of nearby colleges and universities for regional comparison. Results 213,633 tweets from 132,099 unique user accounts mentioned “Adderall.” The number of Adderall tweets peaked during traditional college and university final exam periods. Rates of Adderall tweeters were highest among college and university clusters in the northeast and south regions of the United States. 27,473 (12.9%) mentioned an alternative motive (eg, study aid) in the same tweet. The most common substances mentioned with Adderall were alcohol (4.8%) and stimulants (4.7%), and the most common side effects were sleep deprivation (5.0%) and loss of appetite (2.6%). Conclusions Twitter posts confirm the use of Adderall as a study aid among college students. Adderall discussions through social media such as Twitter may contribute to normative behavior regarding its abuse.

Integrating Web 2.0 in Health Education Preparation and Practice

Background Prescription drug abuse has become a major public health problem. Relationships and social context are important contributing factors. Social media provides online channels for people to build relationships that may influence attitudes and behaviors. Objective To determine whether people who show signs of prescription drug abuse connect online with others who reinforce this behavior, and to observe the conversation and engagement of these networks with regard to prescription drug abuse. Methods Twitter statuses mentioning prescription drugs were collected from November 2011 to November 2012. From this set, 25 Twitter users were selected who discussed topics indicative of prescription drug abuse. Social circles of 100 people were discovered around each of these Twitter users; the tweets of the Twitter users in these networks were collected and analyzed according to prescription drug abuse discussion and interaction with other users about the topic. Results From November 2011 to November 2012, 3,389,771 mentions of prescription drug terms were observed. For the 25 social circles (n=100 for each circle), on average 53.96% (SD 24.3) of the Twitter users used prescription drug terms at least once in their posts, and 37.76% (SD 20.8) mentioned another Twitter user by name in a post with a prescription drug term. Strong correlation was found between the kinds of drugs mentioned by the index user and his or her network (mean r=0.73), and between the amount of interaction about prescription drugs and a level of abusiveness shown by the network (r=0.85, P<.001). Conclusions Twitter users who discuss prescription drug abuse online are surrounded by others who also discuss it—potentially reinforcing a negative behavior and social norm.

Identifying Health-Related Topics on Twitter

Abstract Background: As social media use grows in popularity, health educators are challenged to think differently about how to communicate with audiences. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore social media use and factors that determine acceptance of social media use among health educators. Methods: A random sample of Certified Health Education Specialists (CHES) (N = 503) completed an online survey consisting of items related to the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). Results: Findings revealed that health educators most commonly used social networking sites (34.8%), podcasts (23.5%), and media sharing sites (18.5%) within their organizations. Social influence (P < 0.0001) and performance expectancy (P < 0.0001) were both positively associated with increased behavioral intentions to use social media for health promotion. Reasons for lack of use included employers monitoring or blocking social media, difficulty of use among older health educators, and the belief that social media would not enhance job performance. Discussion: Many health educators are using social media and intentions to use in practice are associated with social influence and performance expectancy. Translation to Health Education Practice: Social media use holds promise as a supporting methodology to enhance health education practice. Implementation should include attention to guidelines and best practice.

Developing a Promotional Strategy: Important Questions for Social Marketing

Abstract Competency in 21st-century health communication involves an understanding that the internet landscape has evolved from static webpages to applications that engage users. This evolution to “Web 2.0„ includes such applications as blogs, wikis, social-networking sites, and podcasts. This review presents trends in Web 2.0 internet usage, summarizes Web 2.0 applications as platforms for health promotion, discusses guidelines for using Web 2.0 applications, and identifies Web 2.0 learning outcomes. Greater awareness of Web 2.0 can provide health educators with new channels for health communication and will help stimulate additional research to further define best-practice models.