Category: General Interest

Categories : General Interest HospitalsTags :

Maternity Wards at Dora Nginza Hospital ‘Chaotic’ as Nurses Down Tools

On By ModernMedia

By Joseph Chirume at GroundUp

Services at the Dora Nginza Hospital in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape are under strain as the nurse’s strike entered its second day on Friday. The striking nurses are demanding that management provide more beds and staff to the maternity wards, among other demands. They claim that their previous engagements with the health department have been fruitless.

On Thursday, some patients were moved to another hospital. Dora Nginza Hospital is the centre for maternal and paediatric care for the western part of the Eastern Cape.

A pregnant woman at the hospital described the maternity ward as “chaotic”.

“Heavily pregnant women were crying for help that was not coming. Many people are sleeping on the cold floor and there is a smell of blood in the ward. The few nurses there are overwhelmed,” she said.

Vuyo Nodlawu, regional chairperson of the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA), told GroundUp that the maternity wards do not have enough beds and resources to cope with the influx of patients since Monday. “Patients, be it prenatal or postnatal, did not have beds to sleep on. The situation has been getting worse, to the extent that patients who had given birth were removed from beds to accommodate those in labour,” he said.

Nodlawu said the hospital’s management had told medical practitioners to stop admitting patients if there were no more beds available or until the matter was resolved. “However, the doctors continued to admit patients. Nurses then decided to allocate all available beds within the maternal department to everyone who didn’t have a bed,” said Nodlawu.

A meeting was called between the maternal directorate from the head office and the hospital but it was unsuccessful.

Mzikazi Nkatha, provincial deputy secretary of the National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers (NUPSAW)’s, said, “Nurses are saying enough is enough. They can’t continue as normal when patients have to lie on the floor and not on hospital beds. This is also an overwhelming number of patients and not enough health providers to care for them.”

Health department spokesperson Yonela Dekeda said union leaders have not been willing to negotiate with officials sent by management. Dekeda said plans to “decongest” Dora Nginza Hospital are underway, with emergency cases being referred to Port Elizabeth Provincial Hospital.

She said a team from other hospitals across the district were deployed to assist. The team included Anaesthetics, Obstetrics , Gynaecology, Paediatrics, Neonatology, Nursing and non-clinical support services.

“The designated ward and theatre at the Provincial Hospital has been staffed and equipped with the relevant equipment and medication. The Emergency Medical Services is also part of the response team and will coordinate patient transfers between facilities,” she said.

Dekeda said the department considers the nurses’ action as an unprotected strike. “These essential workers are refusing to engage with senior management nor do they want to return to work. The department takes this very seriously and the administrative and legal remedies at our disposal are being deployed,” she said.

DENOSA’s deputy regional chairperson Vuyo Dlanga has vowed that nurses would continue their action until provincial government officials meet them to resolve the issues.

Republished from GroundUp under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Source: GroundUp

Categories : General InterestTags :

Medicine Nobel Prize Awarded to Neanderthal DNA Scientist

On By ModernMedia
Genetics
Image source: Pixabay

This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to evolutionary scientist Professor Svante Pääbo, “for his discoveries concerning the genome of extinct hominins and human evolution”.

As explained by the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet: “Through his pioneering research, Svante Pääbo achieved something seemingly impossible: sequencing the genome of the Neanderthal, an extinct relative of present-day humans. He also made the sensational discovery of a previously unknown hominin, Denisova.” Prof Pääbo further made the important discovery that cross-breeding occurred between Homo sapiens and our extinct relatives after the migration out of Africa some 70 000 years ago. The gene transfers from extinct hominins that have left traces among present-day humans outside Africa have proven physiologically significant, for example, for human resistance to infections.

Prof Pääbo received a doctorate in medicine in 1986 from Uppsala University. He has returned several times to the University as visiting professor and has also been a member of the University Board.

Uppsala University Vice-Chancellor Anders Hagfeldt thinks Prof Pääbo is an excellent and pleasing choice.

“His research identifying and mapping human origins is tremendously fascinating and of course it’s very pleasing that he is connected with Uppsala. I’m sure many people at the University are as happy as I am today, we have many fine researchers following in his footsteps,” he said.

Mattias Jakobsson, professor at the Department of Organismal Biology, who is also engaged in research on human evolution, had thought that ProfPääbo was bound to win the prize sooner or later, though his name had not been mentioned much this year.

“It’s fantastic, both for him and for the entire field of research. And it’s very appropriate that it’s the prize in medicine, his latest work has focused on patterns of genetic variation due to our Neanderthal heritage. Some of these patterns relate to COVID, for example,” he said.

Source: Uppsala University

Categories : General Interest Injury & TraumaTags :

Oldest Known Successful Amputation Dates Back 31 000 Years

On By ModernMedia
Mariano, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

At a site in Borneo, archaeologists have unearthed the oldest case of surgical amputation to date, a remarkable feat of prehistoric medical practice.

Published in Nature, the researchers describe the skeletal remains of a young adult found in a cave in Borneo, who had part of the left lower leg and left foot amputated, probably as a child, at least 31 000 years ago. The person lived for at least another six to nine years after the procedure, surviving into adulthood where they died from an unknown cause, possibly in their 20s.

The prehistoric surgery is a remarkable feat; preventing infections is difficult even in modern surgical amputations.

Study co-lead author, Dr Melandri Vlok, at University of Sydney said the find is “incredibly exciting and unexpected.”

“The discovery implies that at least some modern human foraging groups in tropical Asia had developed sophisticated medical knowledge and skills long before the Neolithic farming transition,” said bioarchaeologist Dr Vlok, an expert in ancient skeletons.

The skeleton of the young adult was carefully buried within LiangTebo cave – located Borneo in East Kalimantan, in a limestone karst area home to some of the world’s earliest dated rock art.

The bones were uncovered by archaeologists just days before borders closed for the COVID pandemic in March 2020. Dr Vlok was invited to study the bones when they were brought back to Australia.

“No one told me they had not found the left foot in the grave,” Dr Vlok said. “They kept it hidden from me to see what I would find.”

As Dr Vlok laid the bones out, the left leg looked withered, and was the size of a child’s, but the individual was an adult. She unwrapped the part of the leg that contained the stump and noticed the cut was clean, well healed and had no evidence of any infection. “The chances the amputation was an accident was so infinitely small,” Dr Vlok said. “The only conclusion was this was stone age surgery.”

Dr Vlok ran to the office to tell her research colleagues what she had found. “I told them I thought it looked like a surgical amputation,” she said. “It wasn’t until then that they said they already knew the foot was missing.” Dr Vlok had just confirmed their suspicions. The foot was never placed in the grave to begin with.

An accident in difficult terrain

While the cause for the amputation was unclear, the individual also had a very well healed neck fracture and trauma to their collar bone that may have occurred during the same event, said Dr Vlok.

“An accident, such as a rock fall may have caused the injuries, and it was clearly recognised by the community that the foot had to be taken off for the child to survive,” she said.

The location of the cave is surrounded by extremely rugged terrain, and accessing the site was challenging, making the individual’s survival after the the surgery even more remarkable. The finding will provide even more insight into prehistoric medicine, the researchers said.

Source: University of Sydney

Categories : General InterestTags :

Half of Teens Trust Fake Health News

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Freestocks on Unsplash

A new study has found that teenagers have a hard time discerning between fake and true health messages. Only 48% of the participants trusted accurate health messages (without editorial elements) more than fake ones. Meanwhile, 41% considered fake and true neutral messages equally trustworthy and 11% considered true neutral health messages less trustworthy than fake health messages. The results highlight a need for better training of teenagers to navigate a world where fake health news is so widespread.

Health mis- and disinformation are a serious public health concern, with an increased spread of fake health news on social media platforms in the last few years. Previous research has shown that online health messages are mostly incomplete and inaccurate and have potentially harmful health information. Fake health news can lead to poor health choices, risk-taking behaviour, and loss of trust in health authorities.

“There has been an explosion of misinformation in the area of health during the COVID pandemic,” said principal investigator Dr Radomír Masaryk, of Comenius University.

While most research on message credibility has focused on adults, Dr Masaryk and his colleagues investigated whether teenagers are similarly equipped.

“As adolescents are frequent users of the internet, we usually expect that they already know how to approach and appraise online information, but the opposite seems to be true” Dr Masaryk said.

The researchers found that 41% of teenagers couldn’t tell the difference between true and fake online medical content. Additionally, poor editing of health messages was not perceived as a sign of low trustworthiness. These latest findings were published in Frontiers in Psychology.

Teenagers and the media

As so-called ‘digital natives’, modern teenagers are the world’s most well-connected group, with 71% of the world’s youth using the internet.

Studies have shown that teens increase their risky behaviour in response to positive portrayals of risky behaviour in the media, such as smoking and drinking. On the other hand, online health information that supports information provided by professionals can lead to healthy lifestyle changes, self-care, and treatment compliance.

Teenagers look at the structural features of a website, such as language and appearance, to evaluate online information. For example, authoritative organisations, trusted brands, or websites with business-like language tend to be more trusted.

Previous research on message trustworthiness with adolescents identified five editorial elements that deduced perceived message credibility: superlatives, clickbait, grammar mistakes, authority appeal, and bold typeface. Based on this prior study, the researchers developed a method to evaluate the effects of manipulation with content and format of health online messages on their trustworthiness in an adolescent sample.

They presented 300 secondary school students (aged between 16 and 19 years old) with seven short messages about the health promoting effects of different fruits and vegetables. The messages had different levels: fake message, true neutral message, and true message with editorial elements (superlatives, clickbait, grammar mistakes, authority appeal, and bold typeface). Participants were then asked to rate the message’s trustworthiness.

The participants were able to discern between overtly fake health messages and health messages whether true or slightly changed with editing elements; 48% of participants trusted the true neutral health messages more than the fake ones. However, 41% of participants considered fake and true neutral messages equally trustworthy and 11% considered true neutral health messages less trustworthy than fake health messages.

Clickbait less likely to work

“Putting trust in messages requires identification of fake versus true content,” said Dr Masaryk.

In the case of health messages that seem plausible and reasonable, teenagers could not tell the difference between true neutral health messages and health messages with editorial elements. Teenagers did not seem to decide on the trustworthiness of a message based on editing cues.

“The only version of a health message that was significantly less trusted compared to a true health message was a message with a clickbait headline,” continued Dr Masaryk.

The results highlight a need for better instruction of teenagers to spot editing cues that give away the quality of a piece of information. The authors suggest focusing on health literacy and media literacy training, and skills such as analytical thinking and scientific reasoning.

“Analytical thinking and scientific reasoning are skills that help distinguish false from true health messages,” Dr Masaryk concluded.

Source: Frontiers

Categories : General Interest Medical IndustryTags :

A Trend of Prescribing Oral Minoxidil Off-label for Baldness

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Engin Akyurt on Unsplash

The New York Times reports that low oral doses of the cheap antihypertensive drug minoxidil – a key ingredient in many hair-loss treatments such as Rogaine – is now being widely used as an off-label prescription for male and female hair loss.

Since the accidental discovery of minoxidil’s topical efficacy in treating hair loss in the 1980s, it had became a staple in `Rogaine for male and female patients. However, applying the foam or lotion onto scalps is time-consuming and uncomfortable for many – as well as expensive.

There is not much in the way of clinical evidence as to its efficacy. A 2019 study in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology is so far the only randomised open study to compare 1mg oral minoxidil against 5% topical minoxidil for hair loss in female patients.

The oral minoxidil was not inferior to the topical version, and indeed trend analysis suggested it might be more effective.

According to the Times, the off-label designation might scare off some, but such drugs are widely used in practice.

Dermatologist Robert Swerlick, of the Emory University School of Medicine, noted that “most things we [dermatologists] do are off-label because there is nothing on-label.”

Brett King, a Yale School of Medicine dermatologist, told the Times that it would likely stay off-label because there wasn’t a financial incentive for Big Pharma to invest in proper trials.

“Oral minoxidil costs pennies a day,” King told the Times. “There is no incentive to spend tens of millions of dollars to test it in a clinical trial. That study truly is never, ever going to be done.”

Until researchers have the motivation and funding to conduct randomised controlled trials into low-dose oral minoxidil as a baldness treatment, the situation is likely to remain unchanged even if it is growing in popularity with certain dermatologists.

Categories : Ageing General InterestTags :

The 100 Year Old Doctor Who Won’t Hang Up His Stethoscope

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Credit: “What’s Next” Documentary

At 100, Dr Howard Tucker holds the Guinness world record for being the world’s oldest practising doctor. Though he has only just stopped seeing patients, he still teaches medical residents at St. Vincent Charity Medical Center in Ohio, USA.

Having practised medicine for 75 years, the secret is to keep going, he said. “I look upon retirement as the enemy of longevity,” Dr Tucker told TODAY over a video call. He has a computer and smartphone, and is determined to keep up with technology.

“I think that to retire, one can face potential shrivelling up and ending in a nursing home. It’s fun staying alive and working…  It’s delightful work. Every day I learn something new.”

Born on July 10, 1922 and graduating from medical school in 1947, Dr Tucker got the “gift of COVID” from one of his relatives at his 100th birthday last month, but recovered quickly and felt fine. He even broke is neck while skiing in the late 1980s, though he “came out of it totally intact”.

At age 67 he passed the Ohio Bar Exam because he was interested in law.

Tucker shared some of his longevity advice with TODAY:

“Heredity and family history of longevity is a healthy start. However, it must be supported by moderation of nutrition, alcohol, and happiness,” Dr Tucker explained in his Guinness World Records entry.

Longevity runs in his family: his mother lived to 84 and his father to 96, and he has avoided the diseases of ageing such as heart disease and dementia. In addition, Dr Tucker never smokes but drinks alcohol occasionally, and eats in moderation. He has exercised his entire life – though he is now banned from skiing. The day after his 100th birthday, he threw the opening pitch for a baseball game.

His advice is to not retire , and stay active. Though there are jobs which people can’t or don’t wat to do anymore as they age, people should at least take up a hobby or do communal work to provide a daily stimulus for the brain.

The other challenge is to keep learning. As well as earning his law degree, he stayed current with technology, for which he credits his grandson, Austin, who is also making a documentary about the centenarian’s life. He also keeps up with his field of neurology, which he follows with excitement.

Finally, Dr Tucker said that you have to cultivate happiness. “You have to be happy in your job and in your domestic life,” he said.

Source: Today

Categories : General Interest PaediatricsTags :

Horses Work ‘Magic’ for Children with Disabilities

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Children with disabilities enjoy free riding lessons at the South African Riding for the Disabled Association in Durban. Photo: Nokulunga Majola

GroundUp reports on the South African Riding for the Disabled Association, which provides 50 rides a week for children with disabilities near Durban.

“You make the world of difference one day of the week in the lives of the Browns Pre-Primary children, and for this I thank you,” Browns School teacher Fiona Muhl tells the volunteers at the South African Riding for the Disabled Association (SARDA) in Durban.

Based in Assagay on the outskirts of Durban, SARDA has been offering free therapeutic horse-riding lessons since 2007 for children with disabilities. They see about 50 children a week, aged five to 16.

From the minute the children arrive at the Ridgetop Equestrian Centre to the moment they leave, their day is filled with thrills. Children giggle on their horses in the riding arena as volunteers play with them and teach them riding.

Each child is allocated a suitable pony. Once they are all mounted, the lesson begins. There are obstacle courses and various activities, such as throwing a ball into a hoop, to encourage coordination, flexibility and cognitive development.

A SARDA volunteer said one child is still completely non-verbal at school, but laughed right through a riding session and at the end gave a cowboy style “Yeehaw”. What is happening at the riding school is magic, she said.

Susan Warrington, a volunteer at SARDA, said it is one of the most rewarding things she has ever done. “The joy on their faces, the often first words an autistic child speaks, and knowing that these little souls had a good day is the reason we do this,” said Warrington.

Libby Durk, chairperson of SARDA Durban, said children come from Browns School in Pinetown, Ethembeni School in Inchanga, West Park School in Malvern and the Open Air School in Glenwood.

The riding school depends on donor funding.

“We currently lease six ponies from Ridgetop Equestrian Centre and also pay a lease for the use of the property. Other costs include vet fees, farrier fees, dentist fees, insurance, cost of equipment, training days for volunteers, and training and therapy of our horses,” said Durk.

Three volunteers are also needed per child in addition to the instructor of the day – two side walkers and a leader for the horse.

“Our ponies are an integral part of our programme and require special training to become a therapeutic riding pony. The cost of keeping and caring for the horses is our main expense,” said Durk.

Written by Nokulunga Majola

Republished from GroundUp under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Source: GroundUp

Categories : Diet and Nutrition General InterestTags :

Evolution of Lactose Tolerance Driven by Starvation and Disease

On By ModernMedia
Source: Pixabay CC0

The ability to digest lactose is thought to have evolved in concert with milk entering the diet where dairy farming was commonplace, but a new study published in Nature paints a much grimmer picture: starvation and disease appeared to drive its spread through European populations.

Five thousand years ago virtually all humans were (like all other mammals) lactose intolerant, losing the ability to produce lactase to digest milk after weaning and suffering bloating, gas and diarrhoea as adults when they they drank milk.

Professor George Davey Smith, Director of the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the University of Bristol and a co-author of the study, said: “However, a genetic trait called lactase persistence has evolved multiple times over the last 10 000 years and spread in various milk-drinking populations in Europe, central and southern Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Today, around one third of adults in the world are lactase persistent.”

Using archaeological data, genetic samples and computer modelling, the team demonstrated that lactase persistence genetic trait was not common until around 1000 BCE, nearly 4000 years after it was first detected around 4700–4600 BCE.

“The lactase persistence genetic variant was pushed to high frequency by some sort of turbocharged natural selection. The problem is, such strong natural selection is hard to explain,” added Professor Mark Thomas, study co-author from University College London.

In order to establish how lactose persistence evolved, Professor Richard Evershed, the study’s leader, assembled a database of over 7000 animal fat residues from 13 181 pottery fragments. His findings showed that milk was used extensively in European prehistory, dating from the earliest farming nearly 9000 years ago, but its use waxed and waned in different areas and times.

To understand how this relates to the evolution of lactase persistence, the research team, led by Prof Thomas, tracked the presence of the lactase persistence gene using ancient DNA sequences from more than 1700 prehistoric European and Asian individuals. The first instance seen was after around 5000 years ago, and 2000 years later it was at appreciable frequencies and today is very common. Next, his team developed a new statistical approach to examine how well changes in milk use through time explain the natural selection for lactase persistence. Surprisingly, no association was found, challenging the long-held view the extent of milk use drove lactase persistence evolution.

Professor George Davey Smith’s team had been probing the UK Biobank data, comprising genetic and medical data for more than 300 000 living individuals, found only minimal differences in milk drinking behaviour between genetically lactase persistent and non-persistent people. Critically, the large majority of people who were genetically lactase non-persistent experienced no short or long-term negative health effects when they consume milk.

Professor Davey Smith added: “Our findings show milk use was widespread in Europe for at least 9000 years, and healthy humans, even those who are not lactase persistent, could happily consume milk without getting ill. However, drinking milk in lactase non-persistent individuals does lead to a high concentration of lactose in the intestine, which can draw fluid into the colon, and dehydration can result when this is combined with diarrhoeal disease.”

This can have implications for individuals who are unwell, according to Prof Smith. “If you are healthy and lactase non-persistent, and you drink lots of milk, you may experience some discomfort, but you not going to die of it. However, if you are severely malnourished and have diarrhoea, then you’ve got life-threatening problems. When their crops failed, prehistoric people would have been more likely to consume unfermented high-lactose milk – exactly when they shouldn’t.”

To test these ideas, Prof Thomas’s team applied indicators of past famine and pathogen exposure into their statistical models. Their results clearly supported both explanations – the lactase persistence gene variant was under stronger natural selection when there were indications of more famine and more pathogens.

The authors concluded: “Our study demonstrates how, in later prehistory, as populations and settlement sizes grew, human health would have been increasingly impacted by poor sanitation and increasing diarrheal diseases, especially those of animal origin. Under these conditions consuming milk would have resulted in increasing death rates, with individuals lacking lactase persistence being especially vulnerable. This situation would have been further exacerbated under famine conditions, when disease and malnutrition rates are increased. This would lead to individuals who did not carry a copy of the lactase persistence gene variant being more likely to die before or during their reproductive years, which would push the population prevalence of lactase persistence up.

“It seems the same factors that influence human mortality today drove the evolution of this amazing gene through prehistory.”

Source: University of Bristol

Categories : General Interest Medical Research & TechnologyTags :

Prof Shabir Madhi Honoured at NSTF’s ‘Science Oscars’

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Credit: NSTF

Leading vaccinologist Professor Shabir Madhi received the Lifetime Award from South Africa’s prestigious ‘Science Oscars’ held by the National Science and Technology Foundation. He received the honour for his leadership in research on vaccines against life-threatening diseases in Africa and globally, and he has been at the cutting edge of research in this area since 1997.

As well as being the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at Wits, Prof Madhi is also the director of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) Vaccine and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit (Wits-VIDA); and is co-director of African Leadership in Vaccinology Expertise, Wits. During the COVID pandemic he became one of the most-cited expert by the media as the public looked to the healthcare sector for advice and guidance during this crisis.

A number of awards also went to those in the field of healthcare or who contributed to healthcare, an area especially marked by SA’s response to the COVID pandemic.

CEO of SA Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA), Dr Boitumelo Semete-Makokotlela, received the Management Award for successfully leading the authorisation of a number of COVID diagnostic tests, vaccines and therapies during the COVID.

The Network for Genomics Surveillance (NGS-SA) in SA received the Data for Research award for NGS-SA, which generated of genomic surveillance data of SARS-CoV-2 aimed at informing SA’s public health response to this virus. It was represnted by its co-founders, Dr Jinal Bhiman, Scientific Lead for Global Immunology and Immune Sequencing for Epidemic Response South Africa (GIISER-SA); and Professor Tulio de Oliveira, SU.

Other recipients in the field of healthcare included Dr Wynand Goosen, who received an Emerging Researcher aware for leadership of research in SA on the surveillance of zoonotic TB in domestic cattle and wild animals as potential infection sources in susceptible people in rural areas.

Categories : General InterestTags :

Social Media Viewing of Tobacco Content Linked to Use

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Freestocks on Unsplash

People who have viewed tobacco content on social media are more than twice as likely than non-viewers to report using tobacco and, among those who have never used tobacco, more predisposed to use in the future.

A meta-analysis of 29 studies published in JAMA Pediatrics analysed data from a total of 139 624 participants. The study draws on data across age groups, countries, content types and platforms and is the first large-scale effort linking social media content to tobacco use.

“We casted a wide net across the tobacco and social media literature and synthesised everything into a single association summarising the relationship between social media exposure and tobacco use,” said Scott Donaldson, PhD, the study’s first author. “What we found is that these associations are robust and have public health implications at the population level.”

The findings come amid growing concerns about the potential harms of social media use, particularly among young people. They build a compelling argument that online tobacco content has the power to influence viewers’ offline tobacco use.

“The proliferation of social media has offered tobacco companies new ways to promote their products, especially to teens and young adults,” said Assistant Professor Jon-Patrick Allem, the paper’s senior author. “Our hope is that policymakers and other stakeholders can use our study as a basis for decision making and action.”

Effects across age, content type and platform

Compared to those not reporting exposure tobacco content, people who did report exposure were more than twice as likely to use tobacco in their lifetime, to have used it in the past 30 days, or to be susceptible to future tobacco use if they had never used tobacco before.

“Of particular importance is the fact that people who had never before used tobacco were more susceptible,” Prof Allem said. “This suggests that exposure to tobacco-related content can pique interest and potentially lead nonusers to transition to tobacco use.”

The sample included populations from across the United States, India, Australia, and Indonesia. Adolescents made up 72% of the participants, while young adults and adults accounted for 15% and 13%, respectively.

Tobacco content included both ‘organic’ or user-generated posts, such as videos of friends smoking or vaping, and promotional material, including advertising or sponsorships from tobacco companies. Items depicted in posts ranged from cigarettes and e-cigarettes to cigars, hookah and smokeless tobacco products. Tobacco content appeared on a range of social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, Pinterest and Tumblr.

Both active engagement with tobacco content (eg commenting or liking) and passive engagement (just viewing) were associated with lifetime use, recent use and susceptibility to future use. People who saw content on two or more social media platforms faced even higher odds of use or susceptibility to use than those who saw tobacco-related content on just one platform.

The researchers suggest that future research should use longitudinal or experimental designs to determine whether exposure to tobacco content on social media directly leads to tobacco use. As the data in meta-analysis was drawn mostly from surveys conducted at a single point in time, a causal relationship between viewing and use could not be established.

Preventing harm from tobacco content

The study’s authors point to three levels of action that can help address the abundance of tobacco content on social media.

“First of all, we can work on designing and delivering interventions that counter the influence of pro-tobacco content, for example by educating teens about how the tobacco industry surreptitiously markets its products to them,” Allem said.

Social media platforms can also implement safeguards to protect users, especially young people, from tobacco content, for instance by including warning labels on posts that include tobacco-related terms or images. At the federal level, regulators might also choose to place stricter limits on the way tobacco companies are permitted to promote their products online.

The researchers next plan to explore the effectiveness and reach of social media tobacco prevention campaigns. They also aim to delve deeper into specific platforms used by young people, such as TikTok, and investigate how tobacco-related videos can impact susceptibility.

Source: University of Southern California