Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Jan 3, 2024
Open Peer Review Period: Jan 9, 2024 - Mar 5, 2024
Date Accepted: Jul 25, 2024
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Social Media Advocacy Impact on Awareness Regarding Racial biases Associated with Pulse Oximetry: An 11-Year Longitudinal Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
The principal objective of this study was to investigate the influence of X (previously known as Twitter) on the dissemination of information and the extent to which it raised healthcare sector awareness regarding racial disparities in pulse oximetry.
Objective:
To explore the impact of social media on increasing awareness of racial disparities in the accuracy of pulse oximetry and how information spreads among physicians.
Methods:
We utilised social network analysis to examine the impact of X conversations concerning pulse oximetry device. Searches were conducted using the X API each year (January to December) from 2012 to 2022 to cover an 11-year period with up to 52,052 users that generated 188,051 posts. We identified the nature of influencers in this field and monitored the temporal dissemination of information in relation to social events and regulatory changes. Moreover, we mapped this against the evolution of published literature on this topic in both biomedical and grey literature.
Results:
Conversations on X increased healthcare awareness of racial bias in pulse oximetry. They also facilitated the rapid dissemination of information, attaining a substantial audience within a compressed timeframe, which may have impacted regulatory action announced in relation to the investigation of racial biases in pulse oximetry.
Conclusions:
These findings provide valuable insights into the potential of social media to be used as a tool for promoting health equity
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.