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Systematic Review
We aim to evaluate the effectiveness of online social media/social networks on: the extent of CE across designs, delivery and evaluation; the types of health issues and populations that have been studied; their effectiveness in improving health and wellbeing and reducing health inequalities; and any particular features that account for heterogeneity in effect size estimates across studies.
"Only one study in this review met the inclusion criteria of this evidence map (Lau et al. 2012):
'In absolute terms, participants assigned to the [intervention] were 6.7% (95% CI 1.5 to 12.3) more likely than waitlist recipients to receive an influenza vaccine: x 2 (1, n=470)=7.1, p=0.008; waitlist: 4.9% (12/246, 95% CI 2.8 to 8.3) vs PCHMS: 1.6%(26/224, 95% CI 8.0 to 16.5).'
In regards to the wider review, the authors state:
A total of 11 studies were included in the review, none of which was set in the UK. The community was not explicitly involved in identifying the health need for any of the 11 studies. No studies demonstrated a high level of CE, where participants were involved in the three measured elements: design, delivery and evaluation. Framework analysis indicated that peer delivery of the intervention was the predominant type of CE. Two processes of CE were reported – bidirectional communication and the use of facilitators – but none of the studies evaluated these processes.
Meta-analyses and meta-regression showed no evidence of beneficial effects on any outcomes. There was moderate (I 2 = 25≤50) to high (I 2 = ≥50) heterogeneity between studies for primary outcomes, suggesting the existence of potential moderators. None of the tested study characteristics explained the variation in effect sizes. The QCA demonstrated that including a facilitator in online social media/social networking interventions showed higher effect sizes for studies that focused on topics other than healthy eating and physical activity."
"The results from this study suggest that CE is not utilised across the design or evaluation of health interventions, and the type of CE undertaken with intervention delivery focuses on peer interactions alone. This suggests that there is very little co-creation of knowledge or building of social capital occurring in evaluated health intervention studies using online social media/networking."