Brief reportYouTube As a Source of Information on the H1N1 Influenza Pandemic
Introduction
The current H1N1 strain (swine flu) outbreak is the first major influenza pandemic in more than 40 years. It started in Mexico in April 2009 and quickly spread across the globe.1 A pandemic of H1N1 influenza was declared by WHO on June 11, 2009.2, 3 Preventive measures for H1N1 include identifying, treating, and isolating diseased people and educating the public about the disease. Dissemination of correct information is important to encourage people to be compliant with the preventive guidelines and practice-specific behaviors for preventing disease spread.4, 5
The Internet has become an easily available source of healthcare information.6 Freely available video broadcast sites such as YouTube are popular sources of information, with more than 100 million viewers every day.7 Considering its popularity and easy accessibility, YouTube should be regarded as an important platform for sharing relevant healthcare information. However, there is a risk of dissemination of misleading information. YouTube has been evaluated in the past as a source of information on vaccination, tobacco use, and breastfeeding.8, 9, 10, 11 Use of YouTube as a source of information in influenza outbreaks has not been evaluated. In this study, an analysis is presented of the use of YouTube by health organizations, independent users, and news agencies to disseminate information during the H1NI outbreak from April to June 2009.
Section snippets
Methods
YouTube (www.youtube.com) was searched using the keywords swine flu, H1N1 influenza, and influenza on June 26, 2009, for videos containing pertinent information about the disease uploaded over the past 3 months. English videos that contained information about H1N1 influenza were included. Videos that were duplicated (in part or as a whole) were not included in the study. All the videos meeting the inclusion criteria were saved. They were viewed and analyzed for content by two independent
Results
A total of 344 videos were screened, and 142 were found to have relevant information about H1N1 influenza (total duration of 569 minutes). The kappa coefficient of agreement regarding classification of these videos was 0.97. The classification of videos according to their usefulness, with details of other characteristics, is given in Table 1. Mean duration of the videos was 4.01 minutes (SD=3.48, range=0.5–13.48), with no significant difference between the durations of useful and misleading
Discussion
On the date of this assessment (June 26, 2009), YouTube had approximately 9.5 hours of coverage of H1N1, of which 61.5% was useful information. No differences were found in average viewership/day of misleading versus useful videos. Similar trends have been observed in the past during evaluations of the role of YouTube as a source of information about immunization.8, 9
The CDC videos had the maximum share of viewership, possibly because the CDC is considered a more reliable and authentic source
Conclusion
Considering the growing popularity of YouTube, this channel of communication should be added to other media forms as a platform for health communication that is worthy of the attention of health professionals. YouTube can be considered an important educative tool that could play a significant role in the event of global disease outbreaks.
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