New framework for emergency social media health communication to young people
The Sydney Health Literacy Lab, in collaboration with the Sydney Infectious Diseases Institute, has launched a new framework to improve social media health communication to young people, especially tailored for health emergency contexts. The co-designed framework is applicable across a wide range of health topics and platforms, including Instagram and TikTok.
As social media becomes an increasingly dominant source of health information for young people, the need for clear, credible and engaging digital communication has never been more critical. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of reaching young audiences quickly and effectively online, whilst also exposing the risks of misinformation and disengagement when communication misses the mark. Previous research by the study team during the pandemic found that Australian health departments rarely used their social media accounts to share COVID-19 messages for young people, and when they did, they infrequently shared on platforms popular with the age-group, nor used formats that appealed to younger audiences.
The new framework offers practical guidance for health communicators in improving this communication to young people, especially during emergency contexts.
Health misinformation spreads rapidly online, but reliable information often struggles to gain visibility. This framework helps health organisations connect with young people through credible, engaging messages that cut through the noise and build trust
Funded by the Sydney Infectious Diseases Institute Seed Funding grant, framework development involved an extensive co-design process across three workshops with 21 young people (aged 18-24) and four health communicators from Australian health departments. The project team also included three youth co-researchers (one of whom is a young influencer with 67,000 followers across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube) who co-facilitated the workshops and analysed the data with the team to ensure the framework remained youth-centred.
The framework which includes five key recommendations with “youth approved” examples is now available online. The full research article was published earlier in Health Expectations.
Organisations interested in learning more or exploring collaboration opportunities are encouraged to contact Melody Taba.
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