PROTOCOL: Interactive social media interventions for health behaviour change, health outcomes, and health equity in the adult population

• Published in: Campbell systematic review Vol. 14; no. 1; pp. 1 - 38
• Main Authors: Welch, Vivian, Petkovic, Jennifer, Simeon, Rosiane, Presseau, Justin, Gagnon, Diane, Hossain, Alomgir, Pardo, Jordi Pardo, Pottie, Kevin, Rader, Tamara, Sokolovski, Alexandra, Yoganathan, Manosila, Tugwell, Peter, DesMeules, Marie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States John Wiley & Sons, Inc 2018; John Wiley and Sons Inc; Wiley
• Subjects: Adults; Audiences; Behavior change; Bullying; Community; Community Relations; Control Groups; Correlation; Depression (Psychology); Developing countries; Disease prevention; Gender Discrimination; Health behavior; Health disparities; Health literacy; Health Promotion; Health status; Healthy food; HIV; Human immunodeficiency virus; Individual Characteristics; Information communication; Information sharing; Intensive treatment; Internet; Internet access; Intervention; LDCs; Literacy; Medical tests; Ownership; Place of Residence; Policy making; Population; Population Distribution; Prevention programs; Preventive medicine; Protocol; Resource Materials; Respite Care; Salt; Social capital; Social media; Social networks; Social research; Social support; Tests; User behavior; United States > US
• ISSN: 1891-1803; 1891-1803
• DOI: 10.1002/CL2.213

A 2014 survey of 32 emerging and developing nations found that those who read or speak English are more likely to access the Internet and Internet access and smartphone ownership rates were found to be greatest among the well-educated and 18- to 34-year-olds (Pew Research Center 2015). [...]social media interventions may inadvertently exacerbate health inequities if those who are most disadvantaged are excluded from participation due to these issues. [...]there is the potential for intervention-generated inequities because social media interventions require the use of personal resources such as time, material resources or cognitive resources, all of which may be less available for people experiencing health inequities due to competing demands on time and resources ( Lorenc 2013; Adams 2016). Combining social media with other ‘low agency’ interventions such as policies to reduce the salt content of food may have a synergistic action by promoting acceptability of ‘low agency’ interventions, which can be seen as paternalistic and controlling. [...]the combination of social media with other initiatives, such as population level changes in food policies or environment, may have synergistic effects. [...]intervention groups included trained peer leaders who attempted to discuss with other members the importance of HIV prevention and testing, whereas the online community in which control group participants joined had no peer leaders, and participants simply received HIV testing information. [...]intervention groups were subject to a more intensive social media intervention than control groups.