Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
Date Submitted: Aug 6, 2021
Open Peer Review Period: Aug 6, 2021 - Aug 20, 2021
Date Accepted: May 10, 2022
(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Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
User and Message Level Correlated of Endorsement and Engagement for HIV-related Messages on Twitter
ABSTRACT
Background:
Youth and young adults continue to experience high rates of HIV, and are also frequent users of social media. Social media platforms such as Twitter can bolster efforts to promote HIV prevention for these individuals, and while HIV-related messages exist on Twitter, little is known about the impact or reach of these messages for this population.
Objective:
This study aims to address this gap in the literature by identifying user and message characteristics that are associated with tweet endorsement (favorited) and engagement (retweeted) among youth and young men (ages 13-24).
Methods:
In a secondary analysis of data from a study of HIV-related messages posted by young men on Twitter, we used model selection techniques to examine user and tweet-level factors associated with tweet endorsement and engagement.
Results:
Tweets from personal user accounts garnered greater endorsement and engagement than tweets from institutional users (aOR = 3.27, 95% CI [2.75, 3.89], p < .001). High follower count was associated with increased endorsement and engagement (aOR = 1.05, 95% CI [1.04 - 1.06], p < .001); tweets that discussed STIs garnered lower endorsement and engagement (aOR = 0.59, 95% CI [0.47 – 1.74], p < .001).
Conclusions:
Findings suggest practitioners should partner with youth to design and disseminate HIV prevention messages on social media, incorporate content that resonates with youth audiences, and work to challenge stigma and foster social norms conducive to open conversation about sex, sexuality, and health.
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.