Social media adoption in local health departments nationwide

J.K. Harris, N.L. Mueller and D. Snider

American Journal of Public Health, 2013, vol. 103, issue 9, 1700-1707

Abstract: Objectives. We examined whether characteristics of local health departments (LHD) and their geographic region were associated with using Facebook and Twitter. We also examined the number of tweets per month for Twitter accounts as an indicator of social media use by LHDs. Methods. In 2012, we searched for Facebook and Twitter accounts for 2565 LHDs nationwide, and collected adoption date and number of connections for each account. Number of tweets sent indicated LHD use of social media. LHDs were classified as innovators, early adopters, or nonadopters. Characteristics of LHDs were compared across adoption categories, and we examined geographic characteristics, connections, and use. Results. Twenty-four percent of LHDs had Facebook, 8% had Twitter, and 7% had both. LHDs serving larger populations were more likely to be innovators, tweeted more often, and had more social media connections. Frequency of tweeting was not associated with adoption category. There were differences in adoption across geographic regions, with western states more likely to be innovators. Innovation was also higher in states where the state health department adopted social media. Conclusions. Social media has the potential to aid LHDs in disseminating information across the public health system. More evidence is needed to develop best practices for this emerging tool.

Keywords: article; government; human; information dissemination; Internet; methodology; public health service; social media; statistics; United States; utilization review, Humans; Information Dissemination; Internet; Local Government; Public Health Administration; Social Media; State Government; United States (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2012.301166

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2012.301166_2

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2012.301166

Access Statistics for this article

American Journal of Public Health is currently edited by Alfredo Morabia

More articles in American Journal of Public Health from American Public Health Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christopher F Baum ().