Viral science: Research helping social media health messages hit home
Dr Gitte Galea has spent five years scrolling social media – but her mission has been far from mindless.
The Cairns researcher has analysed how popular Queensland Health social media accounts are used to communicate public health messages, and surprising effectiveness for dispelling health misinformation.
Dr Galea is a CQUniversity Information and Communication Technology lecturer, and will cross the stage with her PhD at Cairns graduation on Wednesday 22 April.
As mum of sporty kids, Dr Galea said challenging times managing sporting injuries first piqued her interest in the people behind health care social media accounts.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic brought home the importance of social media for sharing essential healthcare information.
'Ultimate stress test'
“Before 2020, we were already seeing Queensland Health socials share fun and often humorous health awareness messages in a really unique way,” she explained.
“The pandemic was the ultimate stress test for social media in health and highlighted the need for really resourcing how social media is managed, and especially the comments section.”
Queensland Health reaches millions of people across its Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok accounts, and has made international headlines for cheeky campaigns encouraging people to poo at work (for better bowel health) and to practice safe sex.
Posting with passion
Dr Galea’s researched focused on the people behind the creative content.
“I chose social media administrators to interview because I could see they were the middleman between the policy makers and the public, and could hold many answers to solving organisational issues,” she explained.
“I wanted to understand what helps them get accurate health information out quickly, and what holds them back.”
Dr Galea was surprised by the passion content creators had for health communication, and the complex processes involved in social media decision-making.
“It is incredibly complicated, enough to fill a whole thesis and nine publications so far!” she laughed.
“And there are bold and courageous people at every step of the decision-making – AI (artificial intelligence) cannot replace health communication experts.”
Funny bones of contention
While memes and trending topics can prompt criticism in the comment section, Dr Galea said edgy humour helped ensure content was engaging audiences – and prompting likes, shares and comments.
“Humour in health is very hard to pull off but for instance sexual health is one area where it’s good to be bold!” she said.
Across her research, Dr Galea presented findings in France, and attended a Science Meets Parliament event in Canberra, and even shared her research via stand-up for a Science Comedy initiative.
Dr Galea will continue her research with CQUniversity, and said earning her PhD showed persistence pays off.
“The first research paper I wrote was rejected more times than I care to remember, and it took four years to publish after many many rewrites, and lots of lessons learned!” she said.
“Publishing research will never be as timely as social media – but it’s exciting to be part of the science that’s improving processes, and ensuring our communities get the public health advice they need.”
Dr Galea’s PhD supervisors were CQUniversity ICT Professor Ritesh Chugh, and Nursing academic Dr Lydia Mainey.
Explore postgraduate research at CQUniversity's Research Higher Degree website.
