Promoting Teen Pregnancy Prevention: An Analysis of Social Media Content Strategy Over Five Years

Although rates in the United States have declined significantly since the 1990s, the U.S. continues to have among the highest teen birth rates in the developed world, and recent policy changes in the U.S. warrant increased attention to pregnancy prevention efforts. This research employed a computational approach to analyze social media messages about a pregnancy prevention campaign with focus on analyzing responsibility attribution and frames that might lead to potential stigmatization. Original posts from the Power to Decide campaign's Twitter account posted from 2017 to 2022 (N = 7,770) were analyzed. Automated topic modeling identified five topics extracted from the data: access, encouraging conversations, pregnancy prevention programs, voter voice, and barriers. A subsequent thematic analysis was conducted to uncover sub-themes that provide insight into each topic. Results revealed an emphasis on social responsibility in the organization's social media messaging, reflecting the multiple stakeholders the organization targets in its social media messaging, which are not limited to the at-risk population (i.e. teens), and to whom structural solutions to teen pregnancy prevention can be promoted.