“While this self-awareness of how they rate their healthy living seems to contradict statistics on
child and teen obesity published by the CDC and other agencies, it shows that there is a foundation
or predisposition for turning awareness into actual healthy lifestyle patterns,” said Steve Seraita, Executive Vice President, Scarborough Research.

Parents Know Best

Using the internet is an integral part of teen activity, but it ranks second as a source for where teens go for health information. 63 percent of teens say that when they have questions about health or nutrition, the seek out their parents or guardians, while half turn to the internet. In both cases, girls are more likely to use either source. Seriata notes that healthcare social marketing efforts designed to reach teens might have an even greater impact if their parents were targeted as well.

When teens do go to the web for information on health, they’re more likely to rely on a search engine than they are a social network.

“Teens are considered to be at the forefront of social networking, but, when it comes to seeking health information, we can see the power of search outweighs that of social networking,” said Seraita.”However, with half of all teens going to the Internet for health information, marketers must create a comprehensive and diversified online marketing plan — otherwise they will miss reaching half of their target audience.”

Download Scarborough’s Teen Health Perceptions Study.

The FDA announced yesterday that it is launching a Transparency Task Force, charged with “making useful and understandable information about FDA activities and decision-making more readily available to the public in a timely manner and in a user-friendly format.” The task force will seek public input on how the FDA can be more transparent, including identifying “new technologies for informing the public.” To this end, there will be a public meeting on June 24, 2009, to solicit recommendations.

The FDA created a Transparency Blog to provide updates on the task force’s activities. Though they will be moderated, comments will be allowed on the new blog, and there are parameters around what will be posted (they are reasonable parameters that don’t appear to limit the scope of discussion). Although the FDA recently tipped its hat to Web 2.0, certainly there is much for the agency to learn about social media and all of the communications opportunities it represents.

In the category of government agencies setting a good example of transparency, we have already witnessed the CDC’s use of multiple social media tools to share information with the public during the swine flu crisis earlier this year. Twitter, YouTube and the CDC’s own Web site were all part of the agency’s outreach efforts and helped the CDC provide a calm voice of reason as public fears mounted.

Will the FDA follow the CDC’s lead and begin to leverage social media to make itself more transparent to the public? Taking it a step further, will the lessons learned through this process lead to more definitive guidance on how pharmaceutical companies can and should engage in social media? We look forward to finding out.

Interest, however, remains strong on sites like Twitter, where as of this writing, the Centers For Disease Control has added roughly 30K more followers since Friday. Additionally, the use of H1N1 to describe the virus has increased.

It has been impossible to escape the news about swine flu (or H1N1 virus) this week. One of the most interesting developments this week has been watching the way people are using the Internet, and specifically social media, to connect with one another around this issue. As of yesterday, buzz volume about swine flu in the blogosphere was still on its meteoric climb, far surpassing discussion levels for the peanut butter/salmonella scare that happened earlier this year or, for a different reference point, recent pop singing sensation Susan Boyle.

One measure of the extent of Internet engagement regarding swine flu is Wikipedia. The site’s page on swine influenza has been updated literally hundreds of times this week. Wikipedia created a separate page focused on the 2009 swine flu outbreak for current information – that page has been updated 119 times as of early on May 1.

Swine flu is also gaining notice on the social networking site Facebook. On Monday there were around 100 Facebook groups dedicated to swine flu. As of early May 1, there are more than 500 groups. The three largest groups have a combined total of 10,000+ members.

Twitter has gained media attention this week as a source of fervent swine flu discussion. By some accounts, swine flu mentions topped out at a rate of more than 10,000 tweets per hour earlier in the week. There were concerns that this discussion created unnecessary fear about swine flu – it certainly can’t be denied that misinformation was being shared alongside good information about the epidemic. There have been plenty of joking references to swine flu, too, but a significant portion of the discussion seems to center around a legitimate desire to connect with others and talk about real issues. Consider these tweets from this morning:

• “Swine-flu symptoms: Checklist to see if you may be infected: … http://bit.ly/9L4Wx
• “This swine flu stuff is kinda creeping me out.”
• “Monitoring the travel/swine flu scenario/issues closely. Biden didn’t do the travel industry any favors yesterday!”
• “Thinks it’s lame that they had to come up with a “politically correct” name for swine flu, to compensate for the ignorance of the masses.”
• “New flu strain having significant indirect adverse impacts on our swine industry at a time when our producers absolutely do not need it!”

CDC Provides a Voice of Reason

Among all those bloggers and tweeters talking about swine flu was a voice that might be surprising to some: the government. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is leveraging several different online channels to provide a voice of reason in the fury of discussion around swine flu – and in the process is setting a roadmap for those wondering how social media can be used for crisis communication.

CDC has a few Twitter accounts, but two – @CDCemergency and @CDC_eHealth – are being used to updates about swine flu. CDCemergency’s tweets include links to more information and provide straightforward tips on avoiding swine flu, such as “New Guidance – Swine Flu – home isolation of the sick, school closures, and other social distancing interventions.” @CDC_eHealth is updating with slightly lower frequency, but provides the same type of straightforward, informational updates, including links and an 800 phone number for more information on swine flu, as well as a handwashing e-card that people can send to friends and family.

What is particularly amazing is the number of people who are being reached in this way: At this writing, CDCemergency has more than 65,000 followers. That number is up 86% since we began tracking it on Tuesday. Compare that to between 500 and 700 individuals who were following HHS Twitter updates when the salmonella/peanut butter crisis hit a few months back.

@CDC_eHealth is also tweeting links to CDC’s YouTube channel, which has several new videos related to swine flu, as well as a phone number and e-mail address for more information. One video that provides a basic overview of swine flu, including symptoms and prevention strategies, has racked up more than 198,000 views and has a 4.5-star rating based on 881 reviews.

CDC.gov: CDC has also set up a dedicated page about swine flu on its site, with a current count of confirmed cases in the U.S. by state, travel notices, guidance for professionals and tips on staying healthy. The site also offers subscription options for e-mail updates and RSS feeds, a podcast on symptoms, and a link to CDC’s Twitter profiles. All updates are available in English and Spanish. So far this week, the site has been updated eight or nine times daily, including on the weekend.

CDC’s online presence seems to be having an impact: Unique visitors to cdc.gov have increased by nearly 100 percent this week, while total visits have grown 123 percent.

Online discussion of swine flu continues to grow at an incredible pace, far surpassing the rate of new diagnoses. We’ll continue to watch the discussion unfold and measure new developments in the days ahead.

When looking just at blogs via BlogPulse, compared with any recent health crisis or pop culture meme, the swine flu blog conversations are now more than 10 times those surrounding the salmonella scare earlier this year, and nearly five times the buzz generated by singer Susan Boyle.

Follow updates on Twitter @nielsenwire

The increased conversations around swine flu on Twitter, where swine flu found its way into nearly 2% of all tweets, are indicative of the spike in conversations around the web.

Controlling the disease, and the message

As updates emerge hourly (the swine flu Wikipedia page was updated 60 times between 10am and 11am) response to the spread of the virus, the Centers For Disease control acted quickly, updating their homepage and creating a special section solely for updates and information on swine flu that includes key facts, related items and the ability to share/post the page to social bookmarking and social networking sites. Buzz activity about the CDC mirrors closely the buzz surrounding both health scares.