The Use of Social Media by State Health Departments in the US: Analyzing Health Communication Through Facebook

The use of social media as a powerful health communication tool is an area of current research interest. Our objective was to describe use of Facebook by State Health Departments (SHDs) in US, and their relationship with CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data. Facebook pages of 34 SHDs were studied over a 200 day period, coding 2597 posts into 19 broad health communication categories. Mean number of Facebook posts per SHD was 76.4 (range 34-133); most frequent topic areas included healthy living (12%), communicable diseases (9%), vaccines and immunization (7%), emergency preparedness and response (7%), infant and child health (5%), smoking and tobacco use (5%), and miscellaneous (32%). Through web-based interactive graphics (Google motion charts), we contrasted Facebook posts with CDC's BRFSS data on adult nutrition and physical activity, vaccination, smoking, adolescent health and road traffic accidents. Our research finds an apparent disconnect between content provided on Facebook by SHDs and the health conditions that affect their populations. Acknowledging the severe limitations in funding and human resources faced by the SHDs, our research attempts to present the factual situation in embracing a vastly popular social media platform for health communication. We believe there is a need for research exploring methods to balance the demands and resources.