By: Adebowale Bello, Freelance Health Writer, with medical review and editorial support by The Datelinehealth Africa Team
Social media platforms contain numerous content on a variety of topics either in text, image or video formats. One of these is Tiktok which is popular for its short form videos and is widely accepted among young people.
However, researchers have found that most non-medical influencer posted health content portrayed as medical advice or educational on Tiktok are inaccurate and may misinform a large number of people. As these videos can go viral quickly, health misinformation on Tiktok can spread like wildfire.
Rose Dimitroyannis, a third-year medical student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine says this regarding Tiktok, “Every type of ‘Tok’ exists – that’s just how the internet works.”
This makes it possible for several people with the same health concerns to connect with each other and provide support as a group.
Some of the health-related content on Tiktok are harmless, such as when people were putting potatoes in their socks overnight to “draw out toxins.” However some health content can be out rightly dangerous including anti-vaccination content or a popular late 2023 trend which encouraged viewers to mix laundry detergent with their coffee.
“There is high-quality and factual information out there on social media platforms such as TikTok but it may be very difficult to distinguish this from information disseminated by non-medical influencers that can actually be harmful,” said Christopher Roxbury, MD, a surgeon and rhinology expert at the University of Chicago School of Medicine.
To establish the prevalence of health misinformation on Tiktok, Dimitroyannis, Roxbury and other researchers analyzed 221 videos within a 24 hour period.
These health videos had over 1 billion views yet they discovered that most content creators who provided this content were not medical professionals and about 44% of all analyzed video content contained unreliable health information.
The abundant health misinformation can be damaging to viewers as it confuses them and they may miss out on vital medical treatment because they followed a trending treatment on Tiktok.
Roxbury adds “I frequently have patients in the clinic asking me questions about things they saw online or on social media, and I have found that many times the information has steered patients in the wrong direction.
In some cases, I see patients who have already sought out and undergone such treatment without any benefit; in rarer cases, they’ve been harmed.”
If you use Tiktok or other social media platforms, you will come across different types of health content and before acting on such content, you need to be sure that it is truly helpful.
How can you do that? - Here are some tips that can help you to protect yourself from unreliable health content.
Source: A Social Media Quality Review of Popular Sinusitis Videos on TikTok, [Internet, 2024 March 3].. Cited 2024 May 3. Available from: https://aao-hnsfjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ohn.688
Related:
How to Spot Health Misinformation and What to Do about It, According To Experts
Published: May 3, 2023
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