Open AccessCommentary: Social Media and the Ethical Principles of its use in Public Health and Health Education Research
Author(s) -
Tung-Sung Tseng,
Amar Kanekar,
Jody L. Vogelzang,
Marc D. Hiller,
Sely-Ann Ayiesha Headley
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
american journal of health studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1945-4511
pISSN - 1090-0500
DOI - 10.47779/ajhs.2019.44
Subject(s) - beneficence , public relations , autonomy , social media , public health , engineering ethics , health education , ethical code , economic justice , health promotion , sociology , political science , medicine , nursing , engineering , law
Social media or web-based interventions are powerful and effi cient tools that have been widely applied in several areas of public health. Social media has become one of the most important approaches for recruitment or intervention, increasing awareness and knowledge of health issues, and in uencing attitudes towards health behavior change. The following article is a narrative review of following subtopics: a) application of social media in public health research and b) role and application of ethical principles in social media based research and highlights the application of ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence and justice and surrounding issues faced by health education researchers while conducting health education research. We propose revisions to the code of ethics for health education specialists incor-porating application of ethical principles in social media usage.