Department of Health Behavior & Policy, Virginia Commonwealth University, 830 E. Main Street, Richmond, VA, 23219, USA.
Robertson School of Media and Culture, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA.
J Cancer Educ. 2022 Jun;37(3):532-538. doi: 10.1007/s13187-020-01842-x.
Social media messages and conversations provide an opportunity to study what users post about cancer risk and preventive behaviors. Personal stories of early detection, treatment, and survivorship are often shared. The purpose of this study was to examine the hereditary breast cancer-focused posts on the understudied visual social media platform Pinterest. Using systematic random sampling, n = 500 Pinterest posts (referred to as "pins") were collected using the keywords "breast cancer" and "genetic testing" in the late 2017. Using a quantitative content analysis, pins were coded for a variety of categories including poster identity, pin characteristics and content, the presence of Health Belief Model constructs, and engagement variables (i.e., repins/saves and comments). The primary findings of this study reveal that most pins were published by individuals and relatively few messages contained specific information about genetic testing. Study results also describe how Pinterest users interact with the content, including higher engagement with information-rich visuals and traditional breast cancer awareness symbols. The information gained from this study may serve as the foundation for better understanding how social media can be used to communicate with women about heritable breast health-related cancers, risks, and protective behaviors. Study results prompt practical recommendations for public health organizations interested in reaching women seeking information about heritable breast cancer on Pinterest.
社交媒体上的信息和对话为研究用户发布的有关癌症风险和预防行为的内容提供了机会。早期检测、治疗和生存的个人故事经常被分享。本研究的目的是研究在研究较少的视觉社交媒体平台 Pinterest 上发布的以遗传性乳腺癌为重点的帖子。在 2017 年末，使用“breast cancer”和“genetic testing”等关键词，通过系统随机抽样，共收集了 500 个 Pinterest 帖子（称为“pins”）。使用定量内容分析，对帖子进行了多种类别的编码，包括发布者身份、帖子特征和内容、健康信念模型结构的存在以及参与变量（即转发/保存和评论）。本研究的主要发现表明，大多数帖子是由个人发布的，只有相对较少的信息包含有关基因检测的具体信息。研究结果还描述了 Pinterest 用户如何与内容互动，包括对信息丰富的视觉效果和传统的乳腺癌意识符号的更高参与度。从这项研究中获得的信息可以为更好地理解如何利用社交媒体与女性就遗传性乳腺癌相关癌症、风险和保护行为进行沟通提供基础。研究结果为有兴趣在 Pinterest 上针对寻求遗传性乳腺癌信息的女性开展工作的公共卫生组织提供了实际建议。
