The Use of Social Media in Tracking Public Health Issues

This article discusses the impact of social media on public health issues and how it is used to track and spread awareness about diseases. It covers the benefits and risks of social media in healthcare and provides examples of its use in tracking public health issues. The article also explores the competition in the healthcare sector and how it affects the public.

Running Head: Social Media
Title: The use of Social Media in tracking
in public health issue
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Impact of social media has created a big place in everyone’s life and it is widely and wisely used
by companies to promote their products and services and by individuals to get connected with
each other irrelevant to the distance. Social media has also a significant impact over health
information, collection of data, tracking health issues as well as for spreading awareness amongst
the public relating to the general health challenges and issues occurred due to certain virus or for
common diseases. Apart from this, social media has various relevant uses, though, it has various
negative impacts also but it has facilitated interpersonal communication, collaboration amongst
online users. Social media is a trending medium amongst the adults and they use this platform
for being active on social networking sites (Pentescu, Cetină & Orzan, 2015).
Social media platforms are used for various data sources in relevance with public health
surveillance. It has also been evaluated that social media platforms could not replace the
traditional sources of data for disease surveillance. It is only used as a complimentary source of
spreading awareness amongst the public with regards to the diseases. Social media platforms are
mainly introduced as a medium of exchange, however, now it has been used for marketing and
promotion by companies and for disease surveillance amongst the public (Byrne, 2012). As per
Pentescu (2014), social media is more effective from traditional sources of media in terms of
reachability, frequency, quality, immediacy and usability. Majorly used platforms in social
media are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc. When Facebook was introduced, it began
with approximately 4 million users which became more than 2 billion in present. Thus, it could
be analysed the effectiveness of this platform. Though, healthcare providers have adopted this
technique very late and slowly.
According to Pentescu, DeLaO & Hung (2016), infectious diseases kill more than 17 million
people every year. Large outbreaks are called as epidemics and these are becoming more
frequent. It has been reviewed that, during past few years, serious infectious have occurred as
compared to previous years. Social media is relatively more significant and effective as a
surveillance system in relation with detecting epidemics early. Sometimes, it has also been
reviewed that people spread rumours regarding severe issues and this affects the people’s lives.
Till yet, authorities have not become sufficient enough to detect rumours yet through which the
reliability over social media platforms have declined (Naslund, Aschbrenner, Marsch & Bartels,

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2016). Below are some of the examples of impact of social media networks in tracking public
health issues:
1. For example, infectious disease is spreading in certain parts of Australia. Due to certain
reasons, government bodies do not have gathered appropriate information about the
infections. There are lot of people who actives on social media sites for a longer period of
time and they gain various information through this platform and they post also so that
other people could also know about the particular incident, thus, government bodies
would easily be able to gather appropriate information with the help of social media
networks and then they could take quick actions to detect the affected areas due to the
infectious virus and appropriate prevention measures could be adopted so that the
affected areas could be served with appropriate resolutions.
2. For example, Kokabera (KOK) virus was found in Australia and this was detected after
sometime when several cases were analysed by same type of symptoms. In relation to
this, government bodies have started using social media platform mainly Facebook with
their unique and innovative feature for future conditions. Facebook has launched an
innovative feature under which when a calamity or any uncertain situation occurs, it
provides an option to its users to mark them safe or unsafe. With the help of this feature,
government bodies would be able to detect the areas where more number of people has
marked themselves as unsafe to provided quick and required prevention measures. In this
manner, social media is very useful for tracking public health issues through which
various people’s lives could be saved.
As per Wamba & Carter (2016), it has been evaluated that impact of social media is high over
both patients as well as over healthcare provider. In terms of patient, they could easily gain
information regarding the virus which is spreading along with gaining relevant information on
the basis of specific areas. In terms of emergency conditions, social media networks such as
Facebook, Instagram, etc. start displaying the user’s nearby posts so that they could take
appropriate measures quickly to take appropriate action as per the situation. Though, users of
social media declined at the time of emergency situation, still, if one person will gain relevant
information, he/she could spread the same information through word of mouth. According to
Ventola (2014), government bodies also posts relevant messages over these platforms with

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warning signs and pictures along with relevant prevention measures which could be adopted at
the user’s end to stay safe from the effect of particular virus, infection, etc. For example,
suddenly pollution level in some regions of Australia gets increased due to large number of
vehicles as well as due to huge air traffic. Government bodies could spread awareness amongst
the public to stay at their places so that they does not get affected with the high amount of
pollution in breathing air and if it is necessary to go out, please use good quality masks. With this
message, large area of the affected region could easily be covered along with spreading
awareness in relevance with the increasing pollution (Griffis, Kilaru, Werner, Asch, Hershey,
Hill & Merchant, 2014).
Apart from this Loeb, Bayne, Frey, Davies, Averch, Woo & American Urological Association
Social Media Work Group (2014), impact of social media is also high for healthcare providers.
Healthcare services are majorly characterised by trust in terms of independence and competence
in relevance with information obtained from patients through various sources, mainly from
physicians and various other healthcare professionals. This affects and develops a gap between
the information provided by social media about the healthcare centre and the actual services
provided by the healthcare centres. Healthcare centres does not guaranty for the service they
provide, they only give assurance before providing service while the outcomes and effectiveness
of their services could only be analysed after the providing service. Apart from this, social media
networks and other internet platforms provide information about the diseases along with their
prevention measures. According to Mickoleit (2014), due to this, people get influenced with this
type of information and start treating their own diseases by themselves. When they do not get
appropriate results, then they contact healthcare providers which become a critical issue for the
healthcare providers as well as for the patients. However, healthcare providers have started using
social media tool to build relationship with patients and general public. With the help of these
sources, heath care providers update regularly regarding the common diseases and the viruses
which are detected and spreading (Yonker, Zan, Scirica, Jethwani & Kinane, 2015).
As per Panahi, Watson & Partridge (2016), social media is effective as well as ineffective in
various sectors. In healthcare sector also, social media has numerous advantages and risk factors
for public. Social media channel establish a link between the patients and providers. With the
help of social media platform, healthcare service providers determine people’s attitude, actions

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and behaviour so that appropriate content could be broadcasted amongst the audience.
Healthcare providers have adopted social media tool to spread awareness amongst the patients
and general public in relevance to maintain a healthy lifestyle and their new innovations through
which the treatment for certain diseases would be easy and quick (Sarker, Ginn, Nikfarjam,
O’Connor, Smith, Jayaraman & Gonzalez, 2015). Following are benefits of social media in
healthcare from public perception:
 It aware people about the related symptoms for a severe disease through which people
could visit healthcare providers so that if they are also feeling from the same disease, it
could be diagnosed on time. For example, today, people have appropriate knowledge
about the symptoms of cancer which is a severe disease and if it will not be diagnosed in
time, people could die. The awareness amongst the symptoms has been obtained from the
internet sources and mainly from social media platforms. If someone feel relevant
symptoms regarding common severe diseases, it could be diagnosed and treated on time,
thus, it could be said that social media is acting as life saviour for public (Househ,
Borycki & Kushniruk, 2014).
 Apart from this, there are lot more benefits such as time. With the help of social media,
information could be transferred on quick basis and in terms of this, people could get
aware about the broadcast information quickly and in time, appropriate prevention
measures could be taken (Panahi, Watson & Partridge, 2016).
According to Fuchs (2017), there are lot more risk factors linked with the information from
social media sources. People rely on the information coming through any medium quickly and
start reacting on them as well. For example, sometimes, it has been reviewed that people create
uncertain rumours regarding the incidents which never had happened in the past. Slowly and
gradually, it affects people’s lives and their reliability over authentic information is also gets
declining. Due to these incidents, they do not take real news and information seriously (Casella,
Mills & Usher, 2014). Following are certain risk factors of social media usage in healthcare
sectors from the perceptive of public:
 There is huge competition in every market and to gain competitive advantage, every
competitor is adopting social media and other marketing strategies for showcasing

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effectiveness of their product in comparison to the competitors. The same trend has
been followed by healthcare providers. Competition in healthcare sector is also
increasing rapidly and due to this, every healthcare provider has adopted various
mediums of marketing and promotion to spread awareness amongst the target
audience regarding their innovation and adaptation of technologies which makes
treatment easy and more effective. In this competition race, risk factor for general
public increases because those providers also promote and market their products who
does not have appropriate technology and capability to provide appropriate treatment
to the patients and this act is done just to gain competitive advantage and attract the
patients to enhance revenues. This increases risk factor for the people.
 Apart from this, various healthcare providers try to take advantage. For example,
when Kokabera virus affected Aussies, medical authorities analysed the symptoms
and the causes of the disease to make appropriate antidote for the same disease for
current as well as for the future conditions. Further, antidote was given to all the
appropriate and capable medical institutions so that if the same type of situation
occurs, they could provide appropriate treatment. In relevance to this context, number
of patients gets increases for the capable healthcare providers while those who are
not, they will not get the opportunity to serve much patients. With regards to take
advantage of these types of incidents, healthcare providers spread awareness amongst
the public through social media platforms and as these platforms are effective and
quick, fake news will be communicated amongst the public. Thus, risk for public will
get increased by taking treatment from these type of healthcare service providers.
Thus, it could be concluded that social media is a platform which is used for spreading
awareness amongst the public regarding latest events. It is majorly used by individuals to get
connected with each other and along with this, it is used by companies to market and advertise
their products and services. Social media is increasingly used for harnessing public health issues
amongst the public through communication tools in order to broadcast associated risks and
interventions to promote healthy lifestyle.

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