Social media-based public health campaign to reduce indoor tanning in high-risk populations
June 19, 2023
Abstract
Introduction:
Indoor tanning beds cause over 450,000 new skin cancers each year, yet use remains common, with a global indoor tanning prevalence of 10.4%. Social media provides an opportunity for cost-effective, targeted public health messaging. We sought to direct Instagram users at high risk of indoor tanning to accurate health information about the risks of indoor tanning, and to reduce indoor tanning bed use.
Methods:
We disseminated a public health campaign on Instagram April 6–27 2022 with 34 video and still-image advertisements. We had two target audiences at high risk of indoor tanning: women aged 18–30 in Kentucky, Nebraska, Ohio or Tennessee interested in indoor tanning; and men aged 18–45 in California interested in indoor tanning. To evaluate the impact of the campaign, we tracked online metrics including website visits, and conducted an interrupted time series analysis of foot traffic data in our target states for all tanning salons documented on SafeGraph from January 1 2018 to 3 months post-campaign.
Results:
Our indoor tanning health information advertisements appeared on Instagram feeds 9.1 million times, reaching 1.06 million individuals. We received 7004 views of our indoor tanning health information landing page (Average Time on Page 56s). We did not identify a significant effect on foot traffic data to tanning salons.
Conclusions:
We demonstrate the successful use of social media advertising to direct high-risk groups to online health information about indoor tanning. Future research quantifying tanning visits pre- and post- indoor tanning interventions is needed to guide future public health efforts.
Source:
Isabella Joy de Vere Hunt, Zhuo Ran Cai, Vanessa Nava, Natnaelle E. Admassu, Stephanie Bousheri, Tiffani Johnson, Anna Tomz, Jessica Thompson, Lucy Zhang, Sherry Pagoto, Mackenzie R. Wehner, Maya B. Mathur, Eleni Linos,
A social media-based public health campaign to reduce indoor tanning in high-risk populations, AJPM Focus, 2023, 100123, ISSN 2773-0654,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.focus.2023.100123.