Presented on September 12th, 2018 at the 2018 National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media in Atlanta, GA.

1. A Technical Framework for Rigorous
Health Communication Research in
the Social Media Era
Katja Reuter, PhD*; Katja Reuter, PhD; Jennifer B. Unger, PhD; Elsi Kaiser, PhD; NamQuyen Le, MPH; Alicia MacLennan, MS; Praveen Angyan, MS
*Speaker: Assistant Professor of Clinical Preventive Medicine, Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck
School of Medicine of USC; Director of Digital Innovation and Communication, Southern California Clinical and
Translational Science Institute (SC CTSI), University of Southern California (USC)
Presented at the 2018 National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media, Atlanta, GA,
September 12, 2018

2. In case of a public health emergency,
social media provides an opportunity to reach large segments
of the population. However, timely and accurate
dissemination of health information can be challenging to
public health groups with limited resources.

3. ?Health officials and communication practitioners don’t
necessarily have evidence-based information available to
decide what messaging and social media platforms are most
efficient to reach specific audiences.

4. Factors that may influence message
effectiveness on social media
Linguistics
Image/Video
Time Day of week
Health topic Language
Populations Social media type
Communication
technique
EXAMPLES

5. WHAT IF A WEB-BASED TOOL COULD HELP TO
ADDRESS THESE CHALLENGES?

6. Running Multiple Experiments
TRIAL PROMOTOR
SANDBOX
Experiment 1 Experiment 2 Experiment 3 Experiment 4
Messaging strategies to be tested
Automated distribution across multiple platforms

7. Application setup and data flow diagram
Reuter et al. A Matter of Both Quality and Quantity: A Technical Framework for
Health Promotion and Intervention Research in the Social Media Era. JMIR
Preprints. 15/06/2018:11263. DOI: 10.2196/preprints.11263.

8. Data Validation: Results for a resolution
check of images
Reuter et al. A Matter of Both Quality and Quantity: A Technical Framework for
Health Promotion and Intervention Research in the Social Media Era. JMIR
Preprints. 15/06/2018:11263. DOI: 10.2196/preprints.11263.

9. Experiment parameter setup form
Reuter et al. A Matter of Both Quality and
Quantity: A Technical Framework for
Health Promotion and Intervention
Research in the Social Media Era. JMIR
Preprints. 15/06/2018:11263.
DOI: 10.2196/preprints.11263.

10. Generation of final messages
Reuter et al. A Matter of Both Quality and Quantity: A Technical Framework for
Health Promotion and Intervention Research in the Social Media Era. JMIR
Preprints. 15/06/2018:11263. DOI: 10.2196/preprints.11263.

11. Dashboard of key performance data
For each individual message by social media type
Reuter et al. A Matter of Both Quality and Quantity: A Technical Framework for Health Promotion
and Intervention Research in the Social Media Era. JMIR Preprints. 15/06/2018:11263.
DOI: 10.2196/preprints.11263.

12. Identification of messages with
highest click rate
Reuter et al. A Matter of Both Quality and Quantity: A Technical Framework for
Health Promotion and Intervention Research in the Social Media Era. JMIR
Preprints. 15/06/2018:11263. DOI: 10.2196/preprints.11263.

13. Results of automated correctness analysis
performed by the application
Reuter et al. A Matter of Both Quality and Quantity: A Technical Framework for
Health Promotion and Intervention Research in the Social Media Era. JMIR
Preprints. 15/06/2018:11263. DOI: 10.2196/preprints.11263.

14. Display of comments and toxicity scores
The messages with the highest toxicity scores are listed first. Example shows Facebook.
Reuter et al. A Matter of Both Quality and Quantity: A Technical Framework for Health Promotion and
Intervention Research in the Social Media Era. JMIR Preprints. 15/06/2018:11263.
DOI: 10.2196/preprints.11263.

15. Examples of
generated
health
promotion
messages that
were distributed
by the
application
across Twitter,
Facebook, and
Instagram.
Reuter et al. A Matter of Both Quality and Quantity: A
Technical Framework for Health Promotion and
Intervention Research in the Social Media Era. JMIR
Preprints. 15/06/2018:11263.
DOI: 10.2196/preprints.11263.

16. Examples of
generated
clinical trial
messages for
social network
Twitter.

17. Trial Promoter Interface
Shows imported clinical trial information, disease type, and disease hashtags
that were included in the messages
Reuter et al. Trial Promoter: A Web-Based Tool for Boosting the Promotion of Clinical Research
Through Social Media J Med Internet Res 2016;18(6):e144. doi:10.2196/jmir.4726 PMID:27357424

18. Trial Promoter and Clinical Trials
Reuter et al. Trial Promoter: A Web-Based Tool
for Boosting the Promotion of Clinical Research
Through Social Media. J Med Internet Res
2016;18(6):e144DOI: 10.2196/jmir.4726

19. Saving Time and Cost
Generation of a social media message takes on average of 5-15
minutes (including selecting the content, writing the message, adding
an optional image or video, and posting the message)
National average annual salary for a social media manager in 2015
was US $52,000 (Glassdoor)
Trial Promoter vs. Human
Reuter et al. Trial Promoter: A Web-Based Tool for Boosting the Promotion of Clinical Research Through
Social Media. J Med Internet Res 2016;18(6):e144DOI: 10.2196/jmir.4726
525 messages in
10 weeks
43-131 hours of labor
equivalent of
US $1800-$5400 labor cost

20. Conclusions
1. Software tool can effectively support aspects of the
production, distribution, and assessment of thousands of
health communication messages across different social
media types with the highest degree of functional
correctness and minimal human interaction.
2. Can support investigators interested in studying
effectiveness of different types of messages and
characteristics to develop evidence-based digital
communication approaches.
3. Can provide public health groups with a tool to increase
their output of health education messages.

21. http://trialpromoter.org
Contact us if you’re interested in…
…using Trial Promoter,
…collaborating, enhancing and developing Trial Promoter.

22. Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the NIH National Cancer Institute (NCI), the FDA
Center for Tobacco Products (CTP), and the Southern California Clinical and
Translational Science Institute through grant UL1TR000130 from the National
Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) of the National Institutes
of Health (NIH). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does
not necessarily represent the official views of the NCI, FDA, and the NIH.

23. Thank you!
Email: katja.reuter@usc.edu
Twitter: @dmsci
Blog: https://digitalmediaandscience.wordpress.com
Katja Reuter, PhD
Assistant Professor of Clinical Preventive Medicine, Institute for Health Promotion
and Disease Prevention Research, Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School
of Medicine of USC