George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA.
Am J Public Health. 2013 Sep;103(9):1700-7. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2012.301166. Epub 2013 Jul 18.
We examined whether characteristics of local health departments (LHD) and their geographic region were associated with using Facebook and Twitter. We also examined the number of tweets per month for Twitter accounts as an indicator of social media use by LHDs.
In 2012, we searched for Facebook and Twitter accounts for 2565 LHDs nationwide, and collected adoption date and number of connections for each account. Number of tweets sent indicated LHD use of social media. LHDs were classified as innovators, early adopters, or nonadopters. Characteristics of LHDs were compared across adoption categories, and we examined geographic characteristics, connections, and use.
Twenty-four percent of LHDs had Facebook, 8% had Twitter, and 7% had both. LHDs serving larger populations were more likely to be innovators, tweeted more often, and had more social media connections. Frequency of tweeting was not associated with adoption category. There were differences in adoption across geographic regions, with western states more likely to be innovators. Innovation was also higher in states where the state health department adopted social media.
Social media has the potential to aid LHDs in disseminating information across the public health system. More evidence is needed to develop best practices for this emerging tool.
我们考察了地方卫生部门（LHD）的特征及其所在地区是否与使用 Facebook 和 Twitter 相关。我们还考察了 Twitter 账户每月的推文数量，以作为 LHD 使用社交媒体的指标。
在 2012 年，我们搜索了全国 2565 个 LHD 的 Facebook 和 Twitter 账户，并收集了每个账户的采用日期和连接数量。发送的推文数量表明 LHD 使用了社交媒体。LHD 被分为创新者、早期采用者和非采用者。我们比较了不同采用类别的 LHD 特征，并考察了地理特征、连接和使用情况。
24%的 LHD 有 Facebook，8%有 Twitter，7%两者都有。服务人口较多的 LHD 更有可能成为创新者，更频繁地发推文，拥有更多的社交媒体连接。推文的频率与采用类别无关。在地理区域上，采用情况存在差异，西部各州更有可能成为创新者。在州卫生部门采用社交媒体的州，创新也更高。
社交媒体有可能帮助 LHD 在整个公共卫生系统中传播信息。需要更多的证据来为这个新兴工具制定最佳实践。
