Compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines in Ophthalmology Social Media Posts

Area of Science:

• Digital Health
• Ophthalmology
• Web Accessibility

Background:

• Patient education on social media is crucial for health information dissemination.
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are essential for ensuring digital content is accessible to individuals with disabilities, including visual impairments.
• Social media platforms are increasingly used for patient education, but their accessibility is not well understood.

Approach:

• A cross-sectional analysis examined publicly available Internet data from ophthalmology and cardiopulmonary social media pages.
• Three independent reviewers assessed social media posts using the WebAIM© WCAG 2 checklist, adapted for social media.
• Posts were graded on a scale of 0-3 based on WCAG compliance levels.

Key Points:

• Nearly half (49%) of ophthalmology social media posts showed no WCAG compliance.
• Color and contrast issues were the most common reasons (38.9%) for non-compliance in ophthalmology posts.
• No significant differences in WCAG compliance were found between ophthalmology and non-ophthalmology social media content.

Conclusions:

• Most ophthalmology social media patient education content exhibits poor WCAG compliance.
• Low compliance creates significant barriers for individuals with low vision to access essential health information.
• Improving WCAG compliance in visual social media content is critical for equitable patient education.