JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Skin Cancer is a growing burden in Canada and the United States making up $532 million and $8.1 billion in healthcare expenses respectively. The major cause of skin cancer is exposure to UV radiation and one of the most effective prevention methods is the use of sunscreen. However, despite this, the low use of sunscreen coupled with the spread of misinformation online is concerning and can hinder health promotion activities.

Objective:

The objective of this study was to understand the content and context of sunscreen misinformation on Twitter.

Methods:

We extracted and analyzed all English tweets containing the word sunscreen, inclusive of #sunscreen, in the United States and Canada (May-August 2019). We used content analysis to analyze engagement, accuracy, sentiment, themes, and components of tweets.

Results:

The majority of sunscreen tweets were personal stories and could not be fact-checked. Among the tweets that could be fact-checked, 70% contained accurate information. Most of the accurate tweets had positive sentiments towards sunscreen use (89%) and contained tips for sunscreen use (56%) while most of the inaccurate tweets had negative sentiments (54%) and contained personal stories (62%). Tweets that contained misinformation were more likely to have any engagement by users.

Conclusions:

Sunscreen misinformation was fairly limited, but misinformation was more likely to have any engagement by users. Health promoters and clinical practitioners can use the results of this study to tailor and design effective skin cancer prevention campaigns on Twitter that would increase sunscreen use.