Social media has been transforming the way in which information about global health is being spread. For example, the Strategic Health Operations Centre in the World Health Organization utilizes social media to help manage global health crises. By paying attention to social media, WHO is able to receive up-to-the-minute updates about global health, as well as being able to rapidly share important health information with millions around the world. WHO has two staff members simply devoted to social media. Other world health organizations are beginning to follow suit.

While social media can allow for the rapid spread of information about global health issues, there are also risks involved with using social media with issues about global health. Social media can sometimes provide an avalanche of data that can be difficult to sort through. Similarly, some of the information could be inaccurate or misleading.

Regardless of the benefits and disadvantages of social media and global health, social media does play a large role in global health. Here are three recent popular social media posts that focus on global health:

1. The Council on Foreign Relations generated a map of vaccine-preventable outbreaks around the world.

2. GAVI launched a colorful graph of vaccine introductions organized by countries, diseases and number of people reached for the last few years.

3. A Twitter campaign launched by End Polio Now celebrated India becoming polio free with a picture illustrating its successful immunization campaign.

While there are drawbacks to using social media to discuss global health, the images created by global health initiatives are still effective ways of educating people about important issues relating to global health. Similarly, by using technology to generate graphs or share pictures, social media allows for information that is more interesting and accessible to be shared, while presenting this information in a format that is easy to understand. As long as it is easy to find and accurate, social media can truly be a powerful tool for educating the world about issues relating to global health.

-Lily Tyson

Sources: Huffington Post, Impatient Optimists, SciDevNet
Photo: hcsmmonitor