Health communication on social media during a crisis

During health crises such as pandemics, social media communication has become an important vehicle for governments and public health organizations to provide timely health information and foster interactive communication by disseminating epidemic awareness and updates, and engaging the public to adopt social and behavioral preventive actions so as to stem the spread of the disease. This chapter aims to provide an overview of the latest research concerning key areas in social media communication by governments and public health organizations during health crises, particularly during the outbreak of COVID-19, and reveal potential areas for further research and enhanced focus. Special attention is placed on what type of content theme or frame should be communicated across different stages of a health crisis, and other aspects of health crisis messages, including effective modes of communication (e.g., use of multimedia) and interactive features (e.g., hashtags), and emotions expressed in posts, as well as public reactions in response to the communication strategies employed by governments and health organizations on social media. The insights offered have practical implications for governments and health agencies with respect to focusing on specific strategies to promote public engagement with their health crisis communication. This knowledge can also provide insights into how health organizations can potentially collaborate with the media and governments to provide information to the public so that the latter can take preventive actions to minimize the spread of the disease.