The NIOSH Agricultural Centers’ YouTube Channel: Time Series Modeling of Viewership of Agricultural Health and Safety Videos

ABSTRACT

We sought to understand the mechanism underlying the growth trajectory in the United States Agricultural Safety and Health Centers YouTube channel. We also explored the benefits and limitations of using YouTube analytics to evaluate the impacts of public health interventions involving YouTube. Time series analysis of total views, total watch hours, average duration of watch time, and number of subscribers were assessed to determine the monthly patterns of non-seasonal and seasonal components in the data from 2013 to 2020. Health, safety, and animal handling video views were summarized descriptively across time and season. Lastly, time series regressions were used to determine the type of video that best predicted growth in the channel viewership metrics. The time series were not random but could be explained by autoregressive and moving average correlation structures. Health videos were the strongest predictors of future growth but were not the most watched type of video. Strong seasonality components indicated that videos were most watched during periods of high agricultural activity, but less so during the winter months. Generally, growth in YouTube viewership metrics was explained by past month viewership predicting future viewership. Outreach and media content may produce spikes of increased interest, but in order to sustainably grow the channel over time, Ag Centers and other agricultural stakeholders should continue to focus on the value of particular content to potential viewers, how and when content is released, and strategic promotion of the channel and its videos.

KEYWORDS:

• YouTube
• Social Media
• Collaboration
• Niosh
• Agricultural Safety and Health
• Training

Acknowledgments

The U.S. Agricultural Safety and Health Centers YouTube channel is a joint effort between the 10 NIOSH funded AFF Centers and the National Children’s Center. These AFF Centers include:

• Northeast Center for Occupational Health and Safety (Bassett Healthcare)

• High Plains Intermountain Center for Agricultural Health and Safety (Colorado State University)

• National Children’s Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety (National Farm Medicine Center)

• Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety (University of California, Davis)

• Southeastern Coastal Center for Agricultural Health and Safety (University of Florida)

• Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health (University of Iowa)

• Southeast Center for Agricultural Health and Injury Prevention (University of Kentucky)

• Upper Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center (University of Minnesota)

• Central States Center for Agricultural Safety and Health (University of Nebraska Medical Center)

• Southwest Center for Agricultural Health, Injury Prevention and Education (University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler)

• Pacific Northwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center (University of Washington)

In addition to the current staff and leadership at the AFF Centers and the National Children’s Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety, we would like to thank Ms. Ellen Duysen, Ms. Whitney Pennington and Dr. Aaron Yoder for their significant contributions to the development of the collaborative YouTube channel and for consulting with us on this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The research and manuscript preparation were supported by the Centers for Disease Control, National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing Cooperative Agreements, 2 U54 OH007548, U54 OH010162, U54 OH010170. The contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.