Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
Date Submitted: Jul 17, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Jul 21, 2018 - Sep 15, 2018
Date Accepted: Oct 23, 2018
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Considering the impact of Social Media on improving Australian Aboriginal Health: A scoping review.
ABSTRACT
Background:
Social media may have a significant role in influencing the present and future health implications amongst Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Objective:
The aim of this study was to examine the extent of health initiatives using social media that aimed to improve the health of Australian Aboriginal communities.
Methods:
A scoping review was undertaken by systematically searching databases CINAHL Plus; PubMed; Scopus; Web of Science and Ovid MEDLINE in June 2017 using the terms and their synonyms ‘Aboriginal’ and ‘Social media’. In addition, reference lists of included studies and Indigenous HealthInfonet grey literature were searched.
Results:
Five articles met inclusion criteria. All included studies were published in the past five years and involved urban, rural and remote Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people between 12-60 years. Three articles found that social media provided a greater space for sharing health messages in a two-way exchange. Negative portrayal of Aboriginal people and negative health impacts of social media were described in two articles.
Conclusions:
Social media may be a useful strategy to provide health messages and sharing of content among Aboriginal people when framed with emphasis on positive health messages and portraying the strengths of Aboriginal communities. More research is necessary on social media as a way to connect, communicate and improve Aboriginal health with particular emphasis on community control, self-empowerment and de-colonisation.
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
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.