Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Jan 22, 2025
Date Accepted: Dec 10, 2025
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Misinformation and profitability of Hepatitis B Virus claims on Instagram
ABSTRACT
Background:
Patients increasingly use the internet to find health information and social support, yet online health information is vastly unregulated and often contains misinformation. The chronic nature and high worldwide prevalence of Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) suggests it may be a common topic of online discourse, but the prevalence and reach of HBV online misinformation is understudied.
Objective:
To document the characteristics and prevalence of HBV misinformation in Instagram posts, factors that may influence the impact these posts have on viewers, and engagement with HVB misinformation on Instagram.
Methods:
In December 2021, we searched for publicly available Instagram posts using the terms “hepatitis b” and “hep b” and extracted data from the top posts and user profiles for each term. Each of the N=103 posts were coded for 58 variables including post characteristics, types of HBV claims (e.g., treatment, prevention, cure), presence of misinformation (determined by medical experts), engagement (e.g., number of likes), and profitability. We calculated descriptive and inferential statistics to describe the characteristics, prevalence, and reach of HBV claims by misinformation and profitability.
Results:
Over a quarter of posts (n=27, 26.2%) contained HBV misinformation. There was significantly more misinformation about treatment (55.6% vs. 44.4%), cures (75.0% vs. 25.0%), natural remedies (92.3% vs. 7.7%), symptoms (60.0% vs. 40.0%), and censorship (66.7% vs. 33.3%) than accurate information about these topics (all P<.01). Compared to accurate information, misinformation posts had more engagement (1,599.1 likes vs. 970.0 likes on average, P<.001). Significantly more misinformation posts were for profit (47% vs. 14%, P<.01) than accurate posts.
Conclusions:
HBV misinformation has more engagement than accurate information and is significantly more likely to be for profit. More research is needed to understand how exposure to health information can influence patient/caregiver behaviors, health disparities, and health outcomes.
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