Leveraging Social Media to Achieve Population-Level Reach of Lung Cancer Screening-Eligible Individuals: A RE-AIM...

Annual lung cancer screening (LCS) can decrease lung cancer-related mortality by finding cancer at earlier, more treatable stages, yet uptake remains abysmally low in the United States, especially among adults who seldom interact with the health system. Many eligible individuals are unaware that LCS exists, underscoring the critical need for scalable, population-level communication strategies that increase awareness and engagement.

The aim of this study was to evaluate reach, as defined by the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance framework, as the extent to which the target population comes in contact with a social media-based strategy, Facebook-targeted advertisement (FBTA), designed to connect LCS-eligible individuals in the United States with a digital health communication message. The advertisement served as a digital outreach strategy for promoting engagement with LungTalk, an evidence-based intervention aimed at increasing awareness and informed decision-making about LCS.

As part of the INSPIRE-Lung Study (INnovating Social Media for Prevention: LUNG Cancer Screening Awareness, Knowledge, and Uptake), 5 FBTA campaigns were launched over a 79-day period throughout the United States. Advertisements targeted adults aged 50-80 years with interests related to smoking or smoking cessation and linked to a study website where participants could complete an eligibility screener and learn more about the trial. Facebook analytics were used to assess reach, defined by the number, proportion, and demographic characteristics of individuals exposed to and interacting with FBTA content. Key metrics included total reach, impressions, link clicks, and cost-efficiency.

The FBTA campaigns reached 1,048,191 unique users and generated 3,109,482 impressions (total advertisement displays, including repeat exposures to the same user). A total of 24,816 individuals clicked on the advertisements (2.37% click-through rate), and 7117 completed the eligibility screener. Of those eligible, 1272 (17.9%) met lung screening criteria, and of these, 483 (38% participation rate) enrolled in the trial. The cost per click was US $0.40, and the cost per enrolled participant was US $19.46. Individuals reached via FBTA were demographically diverse and included many who may be disconnected from traditional health care systems.

FBTA is a scalable, cost-effective strategy to achieve population-level reach of LCS-eligible adults. By conceptualizing reach as exposure to an upstream digital message rather than enrollment alone, this study illustrates how social media can broaden population access to evidence-based cancer prevention tools such as LungTalk. Future research should explore embedding intervention content directly into social media platforms and tracking downstream clinical outcomes.