The use of social media for reproductive health advocacy among physicians: a content analysis of tweets by physicians engaged in reproductive health care

ABSTRACT

Background

Physician voices on social media are important for health policy advocacy. However, the extent to which physicians use best practices around health communications strategy is unknown.

Methods

We implemented a content analysis of 1373 tweets from 12 physicians who specialize in reproductive health care and participated in a reproductive health-related advocacy training program, to describe their reproductive health advocacy tweets in terms of levels of engagement, tone, framing and target audience.

Results

The most common framing centered on identifying abortion and contraception as essential health care services. Approximately one-third used proactive (37%), reactive (33%), and neutral (30%) strategies. Less than one-quarter (19%) of the tweets explicitly self-identified as a physician.

Conclusions

Participants used a range of message frames, tones, and audience engagement tactics, suggesting a deliberate health communications strategy. Advocacy training discusses the importance of these domains when using social media for advocacy.

KEYWORDS:

• Reproductive health
• physicians
• social media
• advocacy
• Twitter

Ethics and conflict of interest

Ethics approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board, Protocol #2018-1045, and no potential competing interest was reported by the authors.

Disclosure statement

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

Authors' contribution (removed from anonymized version)

PCP oversaw conceptualization, research strategy/study design, data analysis, primary writing. DR contributed to conceptualization, research strategy/study design, data analysis, writing. AK: contributed to research strategy/study design, data analysis, and writing. CT conducted data analysis and writing. SP conducted data analysis and writing. HEJ contributed to conceptualization, research strategy/study design, data analysis, and writing.

Data availability statement

The Twitter data used in this analysis was publicly available. The data used in this analysis are not available to maintain the confidentiality of the specific Twitter accounts used.

Notes

1 We use the original name of this social media platform, as its name was changed to X after the study was completed.

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded by an anonymous private foundation; all of the opinions expressed herein are solely those of the authors.

Notes on contributors

P. Christopher Palmedo

P. Christopher Palmedo is a Clinical Professor at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH). His research focuses on health communication, social media social marketing, college student health and public health nutrition.

Diana Romero

Diana Romero is a Professor and Director of the Maternal, Child, Reproductive and Sexual Health specialization (MCRSH) at CUNY SPH. Her work includes research on integration of reproductive health services in primary care and safety-net health care utilization among uninsured immigrants in NYC.

Amy Kwan

Amy Kwan is the Director of Evaluation and Learning at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She served as manager for the research project within which the current research was conducted.

Courtney Takats

Courtney Takats is a doctoral student focusing on Epidemiology. Recent work includes serving as a data analyst for the New York University Antimicrobial-Resistant Pathogens Program Team.

Sarah Pickering

Sarah Pickering is Research Operations Manager at Planned Parenthood SE Pennsylvania and a doctoral candidate at CUNY SPH.

Heidi E. Jones

Heidi E. Jones is an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Director of the doctoral program in Epidemiology at CUNY SPH. Her research has centered on ways to improve reproductive and sexual health outcomes, while maintaining individuals’ autonomy over reproductive and sexual health decisions.