IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i10p5973-d815641.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

State Health Department Communication about Long COVID in the United States on Facebook: Risks, Prevention, and Support

Author

Listed:
  • Linnea I. Laestadius

    (Zilber School of Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53205, USA)

  • Jeanine P. D. Guidry

    (Robertson School of Media and Culture, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284, USA)

  • Andrea Bishop

    (Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53211, USA)

  • Celeste Campos-Castillo

    (Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53211, USA)

Abstract

Greater public awareness of long COVID severity and susceptibility is needed to support those with long COVID and encourage preventive behaviors. It is not yet known to what extent health departments have informed the public about long COVID risks or offered guidance and support for those with long COVID. The objective of this research was to determine how and to what extent US state health departments have communicated with the public about long COVID via Facebook. Facebook posts with COVID-19 and long COVID terms made by 50 US state health departments plus Washington, DC, from 1 January 2020 to 31 January 2022, were collected using CrowdTangle. The first long COVID post appeared on 15 July 2020. From 15 July 2020 to 31 January 2022, state health departments made 49,310 COVID-19 posts and 137 long COVID posts. Using quantitative content analysis methods, long COVID posts were coded for health belief model constructs. Among long COVID posts, 75.18% included language about susceptibility, 64.96% severity, and 64.23% benefits of prevention. Cues to preventive action appeared in 54.01% of posts. 19.71% of posts provided guidance for those with long COVID. While health departments posted extensively about COVID-19, posts about long COVID were rare. This represents a missed opportunity to bolster arguments for preventive behaviors and support those experiencing long COVID.

Suggested Citation

  • Linnea I. Laestadius & Jeanine P. D. Guidry & Andrea Bishop & Celeste Campos-Castillo, 2022. "State Health Department Communication about Long COVID in the United States on Facebook: Risks, Prevention, and Support," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-10, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:10:p:5973-:d:815641
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/10/5973/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/10/5973/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:10:p:5973-:d:815641. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.