Social Media-Based Health Interventions: Where Are We Now?

Abstract

The unprecedented growth in the use of modern technology and social media has revolutionized how health information is disseminated and shared among people. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have been increasingly used for health promotion and other public health efforts. In this chapter, we aim to describe the state-of-the-art for health interventions that use social media by reviewing relevant systematic literature review papers. The chapter has three objectives: (1) to identify health interventions that included social media as an intervention component, (2) to evaluate how social media is being used in these interventions, and (3) to provide an update on the effectiveness of these interventions. The unprecedented growth in the use of modern technology and social media has revolutionized how health information is disseminated and shared among people. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have been increasingly used for health promotion and other public health efforts. Social media encompasses a range of Internet-based communication tools, from traditional digital platforms such as blogs and online forums, to modern mainstream tools including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other interactive web and mobile applications. These social media tools have great potential in delivering and upscaling health interventions in cost-effective ways since they can quickly reach a large number of audiences