How Twitter Chats Have Impacted Health Literacy and How to Engage In Health Conversations

Background: Twitter chats are interactive online discussions where participants post messages with a focus on a specific topic for a set period of time on Twitter. Monthly HealthLit Chats take place under the #healthlit discussion hashtag. They are one of several health-related Twitter chats emerging with the goal of engaging professionals in conversation about issues relevant to their work. Examples: #hcsm (social media for health care professionals) and #MDchat (for doctors).

Program background:  Health Literacy Missouri hosted its first Twitter Town Hall in October 2010. Seeing the Center for Disease Control’s National Prevention Information Network’s success in gaining support for National HIV Testing Day through a Twitter Town Hall, we decided to try this method to engage professionals in efforts to improve health literacy.

Evaluation Methods and Results: Health Literacy Missouri started its @healthlitmo Twitter account in March 2010, three months after opening for business. Social media has become a core part of our strategy, especially in building partnerships that can help with our mission of “making health understandable by all.” For the first town hall, we wanted to engage health care professionals, public health workers and government agencies to discuss how to reach the public and media with health literacy messages. Cynthia Baur, lead author of the National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy, and Gary Schwitzer, publisher of HealthNewsReview.org, particpated as guest experts. The goals were to raise awareness of the importance of health literacy, share best practices and encourage collaboration. After the town hall, we decided to keep the dialogue going with a monthly HealthLit Chat. Our first chats focused on Healthy People 2020 and The Affordable Care Act, two health literacy milestones. The next chat will draw a broader network to discuss how young people are seeking health information online. We’ve trained several interested partners on how to participate in these discussions. Results: Nearly 100 people posted more than 500 tweets during our first town hall. Many of the same people have joined our monthly chats. Our followers have more than doubled since October to more than 1,200. We’ve connected with key health leaders and we’ve discovered new ideas and collaboration opportunities. Supporters have started sharing more health literacy resources and ideas on Twitter and awareness of health literacy has grown among health professionals.

Conclusions: Twitter chats are a valuable and cost-effective way to bring professionals together to discuss important health issues. These chats have led to greater collaboration and awareness of health literacy issues and work being done to address those issues. The chats have also enabled our new organization to establish a reputation as a national leader in health literacy and to accomplish our organizational goals.

Implications for research and/or practice: It’s important to have a voice in these conversations and to use them as an engagement and collaboration tool. Best practices for joining in are to prepare ahead of time by finding out what topics will be discussed, contribute ideas instead of just reposting others’ ideas, and take time to review the resources shared after the event.