Risk Communication in Public Health Practices and Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID -19): Social Media Analysis of Health Authorities

Abstract

Objective:This study aims to evaluate information on the website of the Ministry of Health about the COVID-19 pandemic, the social media accounts of health authorities, and the COVID-19 cases.Methods:In this descriptive ecological research, the content analysis of the posts about COVID-19, which were shared for health professionals and the public on the official website of the Ministry of Health, was conducted. The content traffic of the social media accounts of the health authorities about the pandemic and the daily number of cases along with recovery and death rates related to the pandemic were analyzed.Results:The first COVID-19 post was sent on 22 January 2020 through the official Twitter account of the Minister of Health. After the first tweet about COVID-19, the first positive case was seen in the 50th day, while the first death was seen in the 57th day and the first recovery case was seen in the 67th day. There is a significant positive correlation between the number of days passed and the number of cases, deaths, recoveries, comments, retweets and likes that the tweets of the Minister received; between the number of cases and the number of deaths and recovery cases; between fatal cases and recovery cases.Conclusion:A correlation was found between the tweet traffic of the health authorities’ twitter accounts and the number of COVID-19 cases, deaths, recoveries and days passed. Therefore, social platforms can be an important risk communication tool for public health in informing and managing the community in disasters like pandemics.

Keywords

• risk communication
• social media
• pandemic
• epidemic
• covid-19