Online videos to promote sun safety: results of a contest

Abstract

Seventy-percent of Americans search health information online, half of whom access medical content on social media websites. In spite of this broad usage, the medical community underutilizes social media to distribute preventive health information. This project aimed to highlight the promise of social media for delivering skin cancer prevention messaging by hosting and quantifying the impact of an online video contest. In 2010 and 2011, we solicited video submissions and searched existing YouTube videos. Three finalists were selected and ranked. Winners were announced at national dermatology meetings and publicized via a contest website. Afterwards, YouTube view counts were monitored. No increase in video viewing frequency was observed following the 2010 or 2011 contest. This contest successfully identified exemplary online sun safety videos; however, increased viewership remains to be seen. Social media offers a promising outlet for preventive health messaging. Future efforts must explore strategies for enhancing viewership of online content.

Identifying Measures Used for Assessing Quality of YouTube Videos with Patient Health Information: A Review of Current Literature

“…In 3 of 13 publications (23%), quality assessment was derived from a panel of IT researchers [22-24], and in 2 of 13 publications (15%) elements were assessed by two researchers [25,28] but their specialty was not outlined. Yet, judgment of patients/parents/users jointly with health professionals as quality criteria was mentioned in only one publication (8%) [11]. No publications reported solely relying on the judgment of patients (or consumers) to assess the quality of information found on YouTube videos for patient education.…”

“…Title and tags [22-24] were also used in 23% (3/13) of papers selected for quality assessment. Other video concepts that were used for quality assessment included: (1) good description or a comprehensive narrative [22-25], (2) evidence-based practices or efficacy used as clinical example in video [11,13,15,26], (3) suitability as a teaching tool [12,15,27,28], (4) technical quality (light, sound, angle, resolution) [12,14,25,28], (5) credentials or contact information provided in video [25-27], (6) amount of content or the presence of enough information [22-24], and (7) ability to identify its objective [22-24]. …”

“…Although YouTube has the potential to be used for health education and health promotion [15,38,39], as well as a platform for teaching professionalism in the medical field [11], we must take into account that it is a social platform, and thus the quality of health-related information, is constantly changing [27]. Further, other video platforms are emerging, introducing new features that may constantly challenge and redefine the criteria used to assess quality of information for patient education.…”

“…The 13 papers selected for analysis in this review were published between 2009 and 2011, where authors’ country of origin were mostly from the United States [10,11,14,25-28], Brazil [22-24], and India [13,15,26]. It must be noted that of the 13 selected papers, 5 belonged to two research groups—3 to a Brazilian research group [22-24] and the other 2 to an Indian research group [13,15]—raising questions on the representativeness and generalizability of these quality measures across different settings.…”

“…Studies are emerging to recognize the role and relevance of YouTube for health promotion [10,11] or educating patients on specific conditions [12-15]. Efforts have been made to standardize publication of health videos on YouTube; for example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a specific guideline for publishing on YouTube and other online video sites [4].…”