Social Media Engagement With Cancer Awareness Campaigns Declined During the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

• Author: Jacek R. Radzikowski,Dieter Pfoser,Kathryn H. Jacobsen,Paul L. Delamater,Emily K. Vraga,Anthony Stefanidis,Andrew T. Crooks,Arie Croitoru
• Published date: 01 December 2017
• Date: 01 December 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.247

Social Media Engagement With Cancer Awareness

Campaigns Declined During the 2016 U.S. Presidential

Election

Emily K. Vraga , Jacek R. Radzikowski, Anthony Stefanidis, Arie Croitoru,

Andrew T. Crooks, Paul L. Delamater, Dieter Pfoser, and Kathryn H. Jacobsen

Cancer awareness campaigns compete with other health and social issues for public attention. We

examined whether public engagement with breast cancer and prostate cancer declined in 2016

during the U.S. presidential election compared to 2015 on Twitter and Google Trends. We found

that attention to breast cancer and prostate cancer declined in 2016 before the election as compared

to 2015 in Twitter posts and Google searches. The f‌indings suggest that cancer information seeking

behavior, passive exposure to health communication, and active participation in social media about

cancer all decreased during the peak weeks of the 2016 election season. Future health promotion

initiatives and information dissemination efforts will benef‌it from monitoring the major issues

garnering social media attention and then adjusting their timing or communication strategies to

ensure that public engagement with their key policy messages remains strong when emerging news

stories capture public interest.

KEY WORDS: Twitter, breast cancer, prostate cancer

Introduction

Health education and awareness campaigns for cancer and other diseases

increasingly use social media as part of strategic communication efforts to

reach targeted communities (Bravo & Hoffman-Goetz, 2017; Patel, Chang,

Greysen, & Chopra, 2015; Sedrak, Cohen, Merchant, & Schapira, 2016;

Burton, Giraud-Carrier, Rollins, & Draper, 2013). Two prominent examples

of these initiatives are National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM),

in October, and Movember, which promotes men’s health and prostate

cancer awareness in November. Previous studies have quantif‌ied the

substantial Internet traff‌ic and media attention generated by these campaigns

(Jacobsen & Jacobsen, 2011; Thackeray et al., 2013). While some criticism has

been raised about the emphasis on fundraising and on expressions of

support such as wearing pink or growing a mustache that do not promote

World Medical & Health Policy, Vol. 9, No. 4, 2017

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doi: 10.1002/wmh3.247

#2017 Policy Studies Organization