Social Media Used to Raise Awareness About Heart Disease

Habitation » Using social media to teach consumers about heart health

By: Jonca Bull, M.D.

Feb is American Heart Month. Eye disease remains a significant trouble in the Us – it's the leading cause of death, disproportionately affecting minorities. In particular, minorities have higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, and smoking, which are risk factors that tin cause heart affliction. This month, nosotros'll be working with the Centers for Illness Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Wellness to help raise awareness.

Our social media platforms volition exist central to engaging the multicultural population. And they have a proven reach: 65% of Hispanics and 56% of African Americans use social media. In 2014, on average xl% of all prison cell phone owners used a social media site, with blacks and Hispanics leading the trend at 48% and 49%, respectively.

So, how volition FDA's Office of Minority Health use social media to reach key populations? Here are just a few things we take in store for February:

• Sharing culturally relevant messages for Twitter and Facebook. We want to stimulate dialogue on 2 key areas: (ane) knowing your adventure factors and (2) using our resource to help manage them. This month, our outreach will provide information and resources on the post-obit:

• Middle Disease: Who does information technology impact and what are the risk factors?
• Smoking: Smoking is a risk cistron for developing middle disease. FDA has resources to assist yous quit.
• Healthy Eating and Living: FDA has materials to help consumers make heart salubrious decisions (east.thou. how to read the food label), manage their risk factors through FDA-canonical medications, and tips for preparing healthy meals.

• Working with stakeholders to use social media as an engagement tool. We have developed a social media toolkit to guide stakeholders in communicating with their members. The toolkit volition contain drafted social media messages, infographics, and links for consumers on heart disease and hazard factor direction. E-mail omh@fda.hhs.gov to receive the toolkit.
• Hosting a bilingual Twitter chat with our partner, @SaludToday on Tuesday, Feb. 16^th from 1 p.m. – ii p.chiliad., EST. Nosotros'll chat about risk factors for middle disease and provide tips to lead a middle healthy lifestyle. We hope y'all can bring together us and provide your insights on this of import topic.
• Spearheading an #ILoveMyHeart social media campaign with our partners @SaludToday and @ABCardio1 asking you to bear witness us how much you love your center! Participants volition upload pictures with the #ILoveMyHeart hashtag describing their heart healthy activities. Be sure to post your movie and tag @FDAOMH!

Nosotros know that social media is becoming a valuable health education tool to reach minorities. And, we will go on to use it to engage with our audience. Delight follow us and share heart-healthy messages all calendar month.

For more than information about FDA's OMH visit us at: www.fda.gov/minorityhealth

Follow u.s.a. on Twitter @FDAOMH

Jonca Bull, Thousand.D., is FDA'due south Assistant Commissioner for Minority Wellness

The opinions expressed in this blog post are the author's only and practise not necessarily reflect those of MassDevice.com or its employees.

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