Leveraging Influencers to Reach and Engage Vulnerable Individuals With a Digital Health Intervention:...

Area of Science:

• Digital Health Interventions
• Health Communication
• Socioeconomic Status and Health

Background:

• Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) pose significant global health and economic burdens, disproportionately affecting low socioeconomic status (SES) populations.
• Digital health interventions (DHIs) offer scalable solutions for health promotion but face challenges in reaching and engaging vulnerable groups.
• Social media influencers present a novel channel to connect with large audiences, potentially bridging the gap for low-SES individuals.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the effectiveness of social media influencers in reaching vulnerable individuals for DHIs.
• To evaluate how DHI design elements influence user engagement among vulnerable populations.
• To measure reach via app downloads per stream viewer and engagement via intervention completion rates.

Main Methods:

• A quasi-experimental field design was employed using a stress management DHI with a slow-paced breathing exercise.
• Three DHI versions (StressLess, Breeze, TragicKingdom) were developed with varying design elements (gamification, storytelling).
• Recruitment utilized 8 social media influencers; reach and engagement metrics were analyzed using descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and ANOVAs.

Main Results:

• Influencer recruitment generated 220 downloads from 12,667 viewers, with an average reach ratio of 16.2%.
• Significant differences in reach were observed across DHI versions, with TragicKingdom showing the highest reach (28.4%).
• Overall intervention completion rate was low (7.7%), with no significant differences between DHI designs, indicating persistent adherence challenges.

Conclusions:

• Influencer-led recruitment demonstrates high reach potential for DHIs, surpassing traditional social media methods.
• Effectively reaching vulnerable individuals via influencers requires further investigation.
• Despite initial engagement, low completion rates underscore the difficulty of overcoming adherence barriers in digital health, even with influencer promotion.