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Kushniruk A, Balapal N, Ankem A, Shyamsundar S, Balaji A, Kannikal J, Bruno M, He S, Chong P. Primary Perspectives in Meme Utilization as a Digital Driver for Medical Community Engagement and Education Mobilization: Pre-Post Study. JMIR Hum Factors 2023; 10:e40244. [PMID: 36705964 PMCID: PMC9919443 DOI: 10.2196/40244] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/15/2022] [Revised: 09/29/2022] [Accepted: 10/06/2022] [Indexed: 01/28/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Memes have gone "viral," gaining increasing prominence as an effective communications strategy based on their unique ability to engage, educate, and mobilize target audiences in a call to action through a cost-efficient and culturally relevant approach. Within the medical community in particular, visual media has evolved as a means to influence clinical knowledge transfer. To this end, the GetWaivered (GW) project has leveraged memes as part of a behavioral economics toolkit to address one of the most critical public health emergencies of our time-the 20-year opioid epidemic. As part of a multidimensional digital awareness campaign to increase Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)-X waiver course registration, GW investigated the results of meme usage in terms of impressions, website traffic, and ultimately user acquisition, as determined by web-based training enrollment and attendance outcomes. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to determine the efficacy of implementing humor-based promotional content versus the traditional educational model, and how the translation of the increase in engagement would increase the participant count and website traffic for GW's remote DEA-X waiver training. METHODS The approach to this study was based on 2 time frames (pre- and postcampaign). During April-July 2021, we developed a campaign via advertisements on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the GW website to expand outreach. These memes targeted medical professionals with the ability to prescribe buprenorphine. The time frame of this campaign measured engagement metrics and compared values to preceding months (January-March 2021) for our GetWaivered website and social media pages, which translated to registrants for our remote DEA-X waiver training. RESULTS By the end of July 2021, a total of 9598 individuals had visited the GW website. There was an average of 79.3 visitors per day, with the lowest number of daily visitors being 0 and the highest being 575. CONCLUSIONS The use of memes may provide a medium for social media engagement (likes, comments, and shares) while influencing viewers to pursue a proposed action, such as e-training registration.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Neha Balapal
- CUNY School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States
| | - Amala Ankem
- Lab of Computer Science, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, United States
| | | | - Adarsh Balaji
- American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine, Cupecoy, Netherlands
| | - Jasmine Kannikal
- University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL, United States
| | - Marlie Bruno
- Northeastern University, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Shuhan He
- Department of Emergency Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, United States.,Center for Innovation in Digital HealthCare, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Paul Chong
- Campbell University School of Osteopathic Medicine, Lillington, NC, United States
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Balapal N, Ankem A, Shyamsundar S, He S. Opioid Use Disorder Education for Students and the Future of Opioid Overdose Treatment. JMIR Med Educ 2022; 8:e37081. [PMID: 35849432 PMCID: PMC9345023 DOI: 10.2196/37081] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/07/2022] [Revised: 06/10/2022] [Accepted: 06/25/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Opioid use disorder (OUD) is a major public health concern in the United States. The opioid crisis has taken hundreds of thousands of lives in the past 20 years, and it is predicted to take millions more. With the rising death tolls, it is essential that health care providers are able to use proper tools to treat OUD efficiently and effectively through medication-assisted treatment (MAT), particularly buprenorphine. Despite changes to buprenorphine regulations making it more accessible, clinicians have been slow to use buprenorphine to treat OUD. We believe that training student clinicians in evidence-based MAT and buprenorphine practices will address the training and competence barriers that hinder clinicians from prescribing buprenorphine to treat OUD. Students are in an ideal position to receive and benefit from this training and influence the medical community to better treat OUD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Neha Balapal
- City University of New York School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States
| | - Amala Ankem
- Lab of Computer Science, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, United States
| | | | - Shuhan He
- Lab of Computer Science, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, United States
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He S, Shyamsundar S, Chong P, Kannikal J, Calvano J, Balapal N, Kallenberg N, Balaji A, Ankem A, Martin A. Analyzing opioid-use disorder websites in the United States: An optimized website usability study. Digit Health 2022; 8:20552076221121529. [PMID: 36225987 PMCID: PMC9549183 DOI: 10.1177/20552076221121529] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Background As the United States continues to tackle the opioid epidemic, it is
imperative for digital healthcare organizations to provide Internet users
with accurate and accessible online resources so that they can make informed
decisions with regards to their health. Objective The primary objectives were to adapt and modify a previously established
usability methodology from literature, apply this modified methodology in
order to perform usability analysis of opioid-use-disorder (OUD)-related
websites, and make important recommendations that OUD-related digital health
organizations may utilize to improve their online presence. Methods A list of 208 websites (later refined) was generated for usability testing
using a modified Google Search methodology. Four keywords were chosen and
used in the search: “DEA-X Waiver Training”, “opioid-use-disorder (OUD)
Initiatives”, “Buprenorphine Assisted Treatment”, and “Opioid-Use Disorder
Websites”. Usability analysis was performed concurrently with optimization
of the methodology. OUD websites were analyzed and scored on several
usability categories established by previous literature. Results “DEA-X Waiver Training” yielded websites that scored the highest average in
“Accessibility” (0.84), while “Opioid-Use Disorder Websites” yielded
websites that scored the highest average in “Content Quality” (0.67).
“Buprenorphine Assisted Treatment” yielded websites that scored the highest
average across “Marketing” (0.52), “Technology” (0.89), “General Usability”
(0.69), and “Overall Usability” (0.68). “Technology” and “Marketing” were
the highest and lowest scoring usability categories, respectively.
T-test analysis revealed that each usability, except
“Marketing” had a pair of one or more keywords that were significantly
different with a p-value that was equal to or less than
0.05. Conclusions Based on the study findings, we recommend that digital organizations in the
OUD space should improve their “General Usability” score by making their
websites easier to find online. Doing so, may allow users, especially
individuals in the OUD space, to discover accurate information that they are
seeking. Based on the study findings, we also made important recommendations
that OUD-related digital organizations may utilize in order to improve
website usability as well as overall reach.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shuhan He
- Get Waivered, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.,Lab of Computer Science, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.,Department of Emergency Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.,Center for Innovation in Digital Healthcare, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
| | | | - Paul Chong
- Campbell University School of Osteopathic Medicine, Lillington, NC, USA
| | - Jasmine Kannikal
- University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine, Coral Gables, FL, USA
| | | | - Neha Balapal
- City University of New York School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
| | | | - Adarsh Balaji
- American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine, Coral Gables, FL, USA
| | - Amala Ankem
- Get Waivered, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.,Department of Emergency Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Alister Martin
- Get Waivered, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.,Department of Emergency Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
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