Health in a Digital Media Age

4 Ways Health Organizations Use Digital Media

2019-01-24T23:30:00.000-05:00

4 Ways Health Organizations Use Digital Media

Health organizations rely on communications and media to engage and communicate with their global audiences. While each organization may differ in their methods and specialties, ultimately they all promote health. To reach the most people, many are beginning to harness digital media tools.

Here are four broad examples of health communication through digital media and check back soon as I go into further detail about each category.

1. Blogs

Blogs are continuously updated sites that are more informal and have been used for food journaling to business updates.

Health organizations rely on this format to share:

Updates of a recent disease outbreak
Behind the scenes at a large nonprofit
Recipes for people suffering from diseases like diabetes
Personal stories of survivors of a health condition
Tips and tricks for weather-related health risks

Click on Informative Health Blogs to see a few examples.

2. Social Media

Health organizations are increasingly getting familiar with social media platforms, and while not all will have a million followers, it is a useful tool to reach out to their target audience.

Ways social media helps:

Hashtags are easy to search and helpful for branding across multiple formats
Having a consistent social media handle and brand improves recognition of health organization
Actively engaging in online conversations builds trust

Click on Social Media and Health Education to see some examples.

3. Podcasts

Podcasts are becoming more popular, and people are searching for health-related topics to listen to.

Reasons a person may opt to subscribe to a health podcast:

Long commutes can offer time to listen to a long lecture
Increase in mobile technology leads to easier access to audio otherwise hard to obtain
Hearing experts in a field may lend listeners to build more trust in an organization

Check out Podcasts Increase Health Awareness for more.

4. Visual Media

According to the CDC, "visuals can make the presentation of complex information easier to comprehend, more attractive, and can also reinforce written or spoken health messages." Not only can visuals create an emotional response, but it is helpful for those with lower reading comprehension.

Visual media, like the rest of the categories, is a powerful tool to get a health message out and I could easily spend days scrolling through the CDC's Media Library.

Check out Health Education via Visual Media for some examples.

Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels

Four categories of digital media are just the beginning of the innovative ways health organizations trying to spread their messages, look at mobile apps alone!

Can you think of any digital media tools that health organizations could use more of or should stop investing in?

Health Education via Visual Media

2019-01-24T23:00:00.000-05:00

Photo credit Pexels

Health Education via Visual Media

Visual media can include images, videos, gifs, infographics, or any other form of media that can help support health messages.

The CDC has an abundance of visual resources available on their site- it was too hard to choose just one so click on Visual Communications Resources for more information.

Here's a page of health infographics on the American Public Health Association

YouTube continues to dominate as a social video media platform

You can't talk about visual media without mentioning YouTube! Many health organizations utilize YouTube, to send out PSAs, updates on outbreaks, share interviews and recipes for healthy living.

The World Health Organization has nearly 1000 uploads and almost 90,000 subscribers! The most popular WHO YouTube video is from 2012 with over 9 million views:

Through digital media, like creative videos, sensitive health topics, such as depression are brought into everyday conversations. This leads to increased awareness and helps many to seek out help.

Have you watched a PSA that resonated with you or made you want to start a new healthy habit?

Thanks for reading along with this short series! You can click on 4 Ways Health Organizations Use Digital Media to find links for the entire series or search by label.

Next up will be a series about targeted health campaigns based on digital media tools.

Podcasts Increase Health Awareness

2019-01-23T22:30:00.000-05:00

Photo credit Pexels

Podcasts Increase Health Awareness

Podcasts can be used to educate, encourage, share recorded panel discussions, and much more. They can be targeted to patients or health care providers making the possible topics vast.

Podcasts American Society of Clinical Oncology

The American (ASCO) showcases how many topics that can be covered in just one organization alone. From main podcast page, they explain, “ASCO offers nine podcast programs covering a range of educational and scientific content and offering enriching insight into the world of cancer care.”

One of their podcasts, Cancer.net is an awarded winning podcast that shared doctor-approved information on cancer-related topics. It is geared towards patients and their families to help them during a difficult time when they may be overwhelmed with information. This could be especially useful during long commutes to doctor’s visits or treatments.

You can check the sidebar or click here to listen to another podcast, American Public Health Association's Get Ready Report.

If you were facing a health complication would you turn to a podcast for insight?

If you’ve been following along the series 4 Ways Health Organizations Use Digital Media click on Health Education via Visual Media for the next section.

Social Media and Health Education

2019-01-23T22:00:00.000-05:00

Photo by Fancycrave.com from Pexels

Social Media and Health Education

Most health organizations have a robust social media presence- because as a digital media tool, social is where they can find and interact with readers. Using videos and images, infographics, and quotes the company can grab the visual attention of the reader. They also send event reminders, scientific articles, fundraising campaigns, and links back to their sites and blogs.

While they can do most of this all on one site, each social media platform has its own niche which means health organizations have to take different approaches based on the tool they use.

3 Social Media Platform Examples

1. Twitter

As a popular micro-blogging tool, Twitter is a perfect source to share campaigns, updates, and have conversations with the audience.

The Twitter account @NPHW is focused solely on National Public Health Week each year and is run by the American Public Health Association. The description makes their purpose and affiliations clear and even includes the hashtag for the campaign. Pretty smart.

Join the American Public Health Association (@publichealth) for National Public Health Week April 1-7, 2019. The #NPHW theme is Creating the Healthiest Nation.

Check out the tweet they pinned on top of their feed to share an activity challenge:

Want to START a team for the #BillionStepsChallenge? Check out our step-by-step tutorial! https://t.co/3H3Japf3gy pic.twitter.com/8oklBAdgyO
— NPHW 2019 (@NPHW) January 8, 2019

2. Instagram

Is a visual candy store that can cause inordinate of time to pass while you mindlessly scroll through your feed. Health organizations are tapping into that by adding fundraising accomplishments, personal stories, calls for action, and inspirational quotes.

Below is a recent post by the Alzheimer's Association. Their description is simple- Our vision: A world without Alzheimer's disease. #ENDALZ alz.org

They include their website and hashtag, which already has 270,000 tagged images and videos on Instagram alone!

View this post on Instagram

Thank you to #Walk2EndAlz Diamond National Team #EdwardJones for raising a total $3.3M for the fight to #ENDALZ. More than 21,000 team members came together at 608 Walks across the country to make this achievement possible!

A post shared by Alzheimer's Association (@alzassociation) on Jan 23, 2019 at 7:39am PST

3. Facebook

Regardless of the troubles, Facebook has been experiencing, it continues to be a social media powerhouse and health organizations don't discount it.

The World Health Organization has 3.9 million followers on Facebook and an active feed spanning vaccine facts, breastfeeding and stroke awareness.

These are very popular social media platforms but, that doesn't mean they are the only ones being used to spread health awareness. In order to reach the most people, the health organizations will follow where the crowds congregate online so they are often watching social media trends.

Do you follow any health organizations on social media and do you find that useful?

If you’ve been following along the series 4 Ways Health Organizations Use Digital Media click on Podcasts Increase Health Awareness for the next section.

Informative Health Blogs

2019-01-22T21:50:00.000-05:00

Photo credit Pexels

Informative Health Blogs

If you can think about it, there’s a blog for it.

As mentioned in an earlier post, health organizations use blogging for many different reasons, and it remains popular since you can write long posts, or short, as well as embed multimedia images to share all the details needed. Here’s an example of how you can even add syndicated content from CDC to your own blog!

Centers of Disease Control and Prevention

The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is an excellent example of organizations using blogs. In the sidebar, there is an RSS feed from one of the CDC’s many blogs.

The CDC maintains 10 blogs on their site! Their blog This is Cancer not only provides details about various forms of cancer but preventative signs to look for.

Not all health organizations using blogs have such a massive site or following, but they are using digital media to reach out to their targeted audiences.

Sjogren's Syndrome Foundation

Many people find blogs because they are looking for a particular disease or health topic so it may have smaller visitor metrics, but that doesn't detract from its effectiveness. One example is the foundation for autoimmune disorder Sjogren’s blog: Conquering Sjogren’s: Follow us on our journey to change the face of Sjogren’s.

Often people with rare disorders turn to the internet for community and questions so organizations that can share helpful, factual blogs give them further knowledge to better manage their health.

What about you? Do you read any health-related blogs?

If you’ve been following along the series 4 Ways Health Organizations Use Digital Media click

on Social Media and Health Education for the next section.