A randomized evaluation of a nationwide information campaign on Facebook found that short messages from physicians and nurses had a significant impact on reducing holiday travel and decreasing subsequent Covid-19 infection rates. Researchers found that the campaign, which reached almost 30 million Facebook users, was an impactful and cost-effective way to slow the spread of Covid-19 and enact behavior change.
This study was designed by an interdisciplinary research team, based on a growing body of literature on the effectiveness of physicians as public health messengers, to test how these messages would work at scale. The research team includes academics from MIT, Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital, Online Care Group, Stanford University, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Bozeman Health Deaconess Hospital, Yale University, Lynn Community Health Center, Johns Hopkins University, St. Anthony North Family Medicine, Paris School of Economics, and McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas.
Based on public guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) urging people not to travel for the 2020 holidays, the campaign featured short messages from physicians and nurses encouraging viewers to stay at home in the lead-up to Thanksgiving and Christmas to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Across 13 states, Facebook subscribers in randomly selected ZIP codes in 820 counties in the United States were assigned to receive 20-second...
Read Full Story: https://news.mit.edu/2021/social-media-messages-health-care-workers-reduce-travel-covid-spread-0823
Your content is great. However, if any of the content contained herein violates any rights of yours, including those of copyright, please contact us immediately by e-mail at media[@]kissrpr.com.