YouTube as a Source of Information on Air Pollution: Significance for Community Health

Corey H Basch; Helen Yousaf; Joseph Fera; Charles E Basch

doi:10.1007/s10900-024-01360-7

YouTube as a Source of Information on Air Pollution: Significance for Community Health

J Community Health. 2024 Apr 27. doi: 10.1007/s10900-024-01360-7. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Corey H Basch¹, Helen Yousaf², Joseph Fera³, Charles E Basch⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Public Health, William Paterson University, 300 Pompton Rd, Wayne, NJ, 07470, USA. baschc@wpunj.edu.
² Department of Public Health, William Paterson University, 300 Pompton Rd, Wayne, NJ, 07470, USA.
³ Department of Mathematics, Lehman College, The City University of New York , 250 Bedford Park Boulevard West, Bronx, NY, 10468, USA.
⁴ Department of Health and Behavior Studies, Teachers College, Columbia University, 525 W 120th St, New York, NY, 10027, USA.

PMID: 38676829
DOI: 10.1007/s10900-024-01360-7

Abstract

Air pollution is a pervasive global public health threat. The purpose of this study was to assess the content of 100 widely viewed English language YouTube videos on air pollution using the search term 'air pollution.' Content categories were created using comprehensive fact sheets and were coded as being present or not in each video. Cumulatively, the 100 videos sampled received 32,826,294 views and 303,692 likes, with averages of 328,263 and 3,068 respectively. The majority of videos (n = 72) were created by broadcast or internet-based news, 12 of the videos were created by professionals, 7 were created by a consumer and 9 were created by others. Three kinds of content were featured in a majority (> 50%) of the videos: "sources of pollution," "environmental impacts," and "solutions offered" and the videos covering each of these topics collectively garnered more than 26 million views and 249,000 likes. Independent one-tailed t-tests (α = 0.05) showed an association between covering sources of pollution and the number of views and likes. For both, videos featuring this content had a higher average number of views (467,391.08 vs. 80,924.03, p = .0383) and likes (4,450.78 vs. 647.03, p = .0383). Additionally, videos showing environmental impacts received more views than those that did not (547,901.49 vs. 80,585.43, p = .0373). This research can serve as a starting point to describe information being conveyed about an important global public health problem. Future research is needed to improve understanding about ways to utilize YouTube and other social media for public health education and advocacy to increase consumers' awareness and facilitate the informed decision-making process.

Keywords: Air Pollution; Community Health; Social media; YouTube.