Abstract
An analysis of a video education campaign on COVID-19 for healthcare workers in Africa delivered through Facebook
Part of Special Series: WONCA World Rural Health Conference Abstracts 2022
AUTHORS
Siofra Maher1 Medical Student *
Joe Gallagher2 MICGP, Director
Monica Casey3 Senior Administrator ULEARN-GP Network 
David Weakliam4 Global Health Programme Director
Liam Glynn5 MD, Professor of General Practice
CORRESPONDENCE
* Siofra Maher
AFFILIATIONS
1, 3 School of Medicine, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland
2 School of Medicine, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland; and The Palms GP Surgery, Wexford, Ireland
4 Health Services Executive, Ireland
5 School of Medicine, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland; and HRB Primary Care Clinical Trials Network, Galway, Ireland
PUBLISHED
10 January 2023 Volume 23 Issue 1
HISTORY
RECEIVED: 20 September 2022
ACCEPTED: 20 September 2022
CITATION
Maher S, Gallagher J, Casey M, Weakliam D, Glynn L. An analysis of a video education campaign on COVID-19 for healthcare workers in Africa delivered through Facebook. Rural and Remote Health 2023; 23: 8102. https://doi.org/10.22605/RRH8102
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
abstract:
Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic required rapid dissemination of accurate information across the world to both healthcare workers and the general public. Social media represents an opportunity to undertake this. The aim of this study was to analyse a healthcare worker education campaign in Africa delivered through the social media platform Facebook and discuss the feasibility of this approach for future healthcare workers and public health campaigns.
Methods: The campaign ran from June 2020 to January 2021. The Facebook Ad Manager suite was used to extract data in July 2021. Videos were analysed for total and individual video reach, impressions, 3-second video plays, 50% plays and 100% plays. The geographic use of the videos and age and gender breakdown was also analysed.
Results: Total reach of the Facebook campaign was 6,356,846 and total impressions was 12,767,118. The video with the highest reach was 'Hand washing steps for health workers' with a reach of 1,479,603. The total campaign 3-second plays were 2,189,460 decreasing to 77,120 for 100% play duration.
Discussion: Facebook advertising campaigns may have the ability to reach large populations and achieve a range of engagement outcomes that would be more cost effective and have greater reach when compared with traditional media. The outcome of this campaign has shown the potential of social media’s use in public health information, medical education and professional development.