JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

U.S. Latine and Hispanic communities face a 1.5x higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia (ADRD) with limited access to culturally and linguistically congruent primary prevention education. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the digital divide, highlighting a need to focus on alternative digital methods for delivering brain health and ADRD primary prevention education. Social media emerged as a promising tool.

Objective:

The objective of this paper is twofold. We first describe the development and implementation of our social media–based Latine–Hispanic Digital Brain Health Program guided by evidence-based frameworks in ADRD. We then present the quantitative and qualitative results from the first 14 months post-implementation.

Methods:

We used Human-Centered Design (HCD) to develop the Digital Alzheimer’s Health Education Model which was implemented via three social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, and X(Twitter). Our bilingual and bicultural team created and disseminated educational content in English and Spanish for the resulting Latine-Hispanic Digital Brain Health Program, emphasizing consistency & rapport, storytelling, linguistic inclusivity, and visual representation. A mixed methods analysis (descriptive statistics and sentiment analysis) was conducted using social media analytics to guide program evaluation and refinement.

Results:

From October 2023 to December 2024, 857 followers were amassed across the 3 social media platforms (534 on Instagram, 124 on Facebook, and 199 on X). Growth in follows, consistent reach, and positive interactions was observed. Sentiment analysis on comments reported overall positive sentiment toward the program.

Conclusions:

The development and implementation of the Latine–Hispanic Digital Brain Health Program has demonstrated potential in leveraging social media to disseminate brain health and ADRD prevention education to U.S. Latines and Hispanics. Our preliminary results underscore the importance of developing a culturally and linguistically congruent ADRD educational program to engage diverse U.S. Latine and Hispanic communities on social media.