Now accepting new patients: Health professionals’ use of social media for health promotion

This Major Research Paper will examine health professionals’ interpretation of social media and their motivation for using it in health promotion. Four health professionals’ were interviewed in order to better understand their unique perspective on the use of social media within health promotion. The analysis was grounded in the theories of technological affordances and social learning theory. It was found that while health professionals’ had a variety of reasons for using social media in their professional practice, the prospect of engaging with the public regarding health topics was a main motivation for using social media. As the use of social media within the field of health promotion is an important topic and will likely continue to be in the future, it is critical to gain a more complete understanding of how health professionals’ interpret social media and what motivates them to use social media to promote health.