Social media use in public health specialists

Aim: Social media is an interactive communication tool and information resource independent of time and place. It is important for public health specialists to be aware of their duties and responsibilities in social media, which is a powerful platform, to take a role in the transfer of healthy information to the society and to actively use this platform. The aim of this study is to question the social media usage levels of public health specialists, to determine their opinions on social media use, to examine the relationship between social media use with age, gender, marital status, title, institution, job position, and duration of expertise. Methods: This cross-sectional study universe of all public health professionals working in Turkey. According to the statement published by the Association of Public Health Specialists on July 6, 2020, there are 453 public health specialists. It was aimed to reach the whole universe. A questionnaire including socio-demographic characteristics, individual social media use, social media use in the institution and Social Networks Usage Purpose scale was applied to 230 public health specialist via Google Forms. The scale is Likert type and consists of 7 sub-dimensions. The high average score obtained from the sub-dimensions indicates that the individual uses social media more for that purpose. The analysis of the data was done with the SPSS 20.0 package program. Values of p <0.05 were considered significant. Results: 97.0% of participants use social media, 97.3% of social media users use social media every day. The 3 most preferred social media accounts are Whatsapp with 97.3%, Facebook with 70.9% and Instagram with 69.1%, respectively. Social media is mostly used for cooperation and communication, and least for initiating communication. 51.6% of the participants who use social media do not prepare content on social media and 68.6% of them do not share their scientific research on social media. 90.0% of the participants who use social media think that social media increases infodemia and 57.9% of them mostly trust the social media accounts of professional organizations. While the use of social media in institutions is 84.8%, the most frequent one is Facebook account with 57%. As the age of the participants increases, the time they spend on social media during the day significantly decreases (p = 0.001). Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn for Women; Youtube and Telegram use is significantly higher in males (p <0.05). Conclusion: The use of social media is widespread among public health professionals and the institutions they work for. Whatsapp and Facebook are mostly preferred. Social media is mostly used for collaboration and communication. The use of social media should be included in public health specialist training. Social media should be considered in terms of health, risk and crisis communication. Key words: Communication, Content, Public Health, Social Media, Whatsapp