Benefits and Limitations of Social Media in Public Healthcare

Public Health Communication and Social Media
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Public Health Communication and Social Media
Introduction
The invention of social media has undoubtedly changed the way organizations, and consumers communicate online (Ventola, 2014). Immediately after the establishment of the internet, communication was highly official and adopted a mechanism referred to as top-down information flow whereby, organizations provided information on static webpages or information was exchanged through official emails. On such websites, consumers or employees did not communicate directly with the management (Ventola, 2014). However, the presence of social media has eliminated the formality observed in traditional internet communication methods and has massively reduced the gap between organizations and consumers. It is worth noting that unlike in the past ten years, the use of social media by individuals aged 40 years and above is immensely increasing which means that even the older people in management positions are conversant with various social media platforms (Ventola, 2014). Like any other sector, the use of social media in communication has various benefits, limitations as well as challenges in the public healthcare sector.
Benefits and Limitations of Social Media in Public Healthcare
Some of the benefits of using social media within the public healthcare sector for communication purpose include public health surveillance whereby healthcare organizations can obtain crucial information about a particular aspect of health such as the prevalence of a particular disease (Heldman, Schindelar & Weaver, 2013). A government or a public healthcare institution can use social media to ask questions about various topics, and through the same platforms, members of the public can answer such question and the information can be used to make a rough estimate on a particular health issue. Moreover, governmental healthcare institutions can use social media to disseminate crucial health care information such as warning people about a particular outbreak or advising people to change lifestyle in an attempt of promoting better health care practices (Heldman, Schindelar & Weaver, 2013). Using social media in such scenarios is advantageous because it allows public healthcare organizations to reach a huge number of people within the shortest time possible compared to traditional mass communication methods (Heldman, Schindelar & Weaver, 2013). Social media also has a huge potential of influencing public health care policy. The information posted on social media platforms may contain important elements that can be used by healthcare organizations to formulate and implement health care policies. Through social media, such an organization can collect information fast and use it to make important policies depending on views and opinions of members of the public. Traditionally, organizations have conducted research surveys before the formulation of any health care policy, processes that are expensive and time-consuming (Heldman, Schindelar & Weaver, 2013).
Some limitations and challenges accompanying the use of social media in public health care for communication include the potential loss of messa...