Can social media encourage diabetes self-screenings? A randomized controlled trial with Indonesian Facebook users

  • Nudging individuals without obvious symptoms of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) to undergo a health screening remains a challenge, especially in middle-income countries, where NCD awareness is low but the incidence is high. We assess whether an awareness campaign implemented on Facebook can encourage individuals in Indonesia to undergo an online diabetes self-screening. We use Facebook’s advertisement function to randomly distribute graphical ads related to the risk and consequences of diabetes. Depending on their risk score, participants receive a recommendation to undergo a professional screening. We were able to reach almost 300,000 individuals in only three weeks. More than 1400 individuals completed the screening, inducing costs of about US$0.75 per person. The two ads labeled “diabetes consequences” and “shock” outperform all other ads. A follow-up survey shows that many high-risk respondents have scheduled a professional screening. A cost-effectiveness analysis suggests that our campaign can diagnose an additional person withNudging individuals without obvious symptoms of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) to undergo a health screening remains a challenge, especially in middle-income countries, where NCD awareness is low but the incidence is high. We assess whether an awareness campaign implemented on Facebook can encourage individuals in Indonesia to undergo an online diabetes self-screening. We use Facebook’s advertisement function to randomly distribute graphical ads related to the risk and consequences of diabetes. Depending on their risk score, participants receive a recommendation to undergo a professional screening. We were able to reach almost 300,000 individuals in only three weeks. More than 1400 individuals completed the screening, inducing costs of about US$0.75 per person. The two ads labeled “diabetes consequences” and “shock” outperform all other ads. A follow-up survey shows that many high-risk respondents have scheduled a professional screening. A cost-effectiveness analysis suggests that our campaign can diagnose an additional person with diabetes for about US$9.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Author:Manuela Fritz, Michael Grimm, Ingmar Weber, Elad Yom-Tov, Benedictus Praditya
URN:urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-15157
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-024-01246-x
Parent Title (English):npj | Digital medicine
Publisher:Macmillan Publishers Limited
Place of publication:Basingstoke
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Year of Completion:2024
Date of Publication (online):2024/09/13
Date of first Publication:2024/09/13
Publishing Institution:Universität Passau
Release Date:2024/12/10
Tag:Health care economics; Population screening; Risk factors
Volume:2024
Issue:7
Article Number:245
Page Number:13 Seiten
Institutes:Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät
Dewey Decimal Classification:3 Sozialwissenschaften / 30 Sozialwissenschaften, Soziologie / 300 Sozialwissenschaften
6 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 61 Medizin und Gesundheit / 610 Medizin und Gesundheit
open_access (DINI-Set):open_access
Funding Acknowledgement:Gefördert durch den Open-Access-Publikationsfonds der Universitätsbibliothek Passau.
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - CC BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International