![]() Social media may have the capacity to reach a wider audience than traditional media. Social media attracts the largest proportion of Internet users and this is likely to continue to grow, making them an obvious target for maximizing the reach and impact of health education. This is believed to have direct implications for health education, prompting new opportunities to use social media to impact disease prevention. Social media is becoming an important platform for information dissemination. Therefore, use of a variety of media and means to improve the effect of health education is necessary to meet the needs of various target populations. bulletin boards, newspapers, shopping bags, leaflets) have played an important role in influencing public awareness of malaria however, one of the challenges is difficulty to achieve the expected effect. The experience of schistosomiasis control in China has also shown that the implementation of a health education programme can improve people’s knowledge level and change their attitudes. The benefits of health education in the prevention of malaria had been demonstrated in Thailand. Health education has long-term effects on disease control and is an indispensable component of malaria elimination. Students at elementary and high schools also have poor awareness of malaria. Malaria awareness among travellers from China remains lower than the national goal. Young people and residents living far from township hospitals tend to have poorer knowledge of malaria. A low degree of public knowledge about malaria has been observed in many studies conducted in China, with particularly weak knowledge on its prevention. However, with increasing numbers of Chinese migrant workers and more business, tourism, and international exchanges in recent years, the number of imported malaria cases from other countries remains high. Malaria elimination has made remarkable progress in China and the country was certified as malaria free by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2021. Distribution of incentives (Red Packets) can effectively increase public attention to popular science and health information and activities. ConclusionĪ WeChat public account is a convenient and accessible tool for spreading malaria-related health information to the public. The number of users of the WeChat public account in question increased from 5961 to 12,339 in just 4 days of the activity. ![]() The accuracy of responses was related to bolded words and location and number of knowledge points that were shown at the beginning of the questionnaire. Questionnaires were submitted through smartphones and most of them were completed during the period of 4 days from April 23 to Apwhen a WeChat Red Packet was offered. Questions in which participants focused mainly on information pertaining to themselves, such as infection, symptoms, and epidemic areas, reached highest accuracy (above 90%). ResultsĪ total of 13,169 valid questionnaires were collected during the China National Malaria Day period. A small incentive (WeChat Red Packet) was distributed to everyone who answered the questionnaire correctly on time. Questionnaires were sent to users who followed the Jiangsu institute of Parasitic Disease WeChat public account during the National Malaria Day 2021 period. MethodsĪ questionnaire for data collection was constructed using the online survey tool Sojump. This study explored the effect of malaria knowledge dissemination via a WeChat public account. WeChat is an excellent social media tool for health information dissemination, especially during the pandemic. Providing accurate health information is important to improving people’s awareness of malaria. Imported malaria cases remains a key health concern, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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