PurposeEngagement is a critical metric to the effectiveness of online health messages. This paper explores how people engage in youth-generated prevention messages in social media.Design/methodology/approachThe data sample consisted of engagement measures of 82 youth-generated messages hosted in a social media channel and a follow-up survey on content creators' motivation for promoting their messages and their dissemination strategies. A comparative analysis of engagement metrics along with qualitative analysis of the message types was performed.FindingsTwo types of messages were considered: stop messages and prevent messages. Our analyses found that people interacted with stop messages on social media more frequently than prevent messages. On analyzing the youth's motivation and promotion strategies, no significant difference was observed between stop message creators and prevent message creators.Social implicationsThis work has implications for programs promoting prevention and health information in social media.Originality/valueThis is the first study in social media-based prevention programs the authors are aware of that differentiated between the strategies of youth-produced prevention messages.
Frequent indoor tanning bed use is an established public health concern, yet research on tanning cessation interventions for frequent tanners is lacking. We describe the protocol for a brief, web-based tanning behavior change intervention and present evidence that it is acceptable and engaging to frequent indoor tanners. Lower tanning rates were not observed among participants receiving the intervention in a randomized controlled trial but participants’ interest in changing tanning increased. This intervention could be a useful approach to increasing frequent tanners’ interest in behavior change and openness to engaging within a more intensive, multi-component tanning cessation program. Trial Registration: NCT03448224 Clinical Trials.gov ( https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03448224?cond=NCT03448224&draw=2&rank=1 )
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