Impact and engagement of a virtual platform to provide equitable oncology education globally.

Abstract

11019 Background: Social media has emerged as a powerful outlet for the dissemination of medical information, especially in resource-limited regions, due to its mass global reach. However, misinformation has presented an unexpected detriment to public health on a global scale. To address this, MedNews Week (MNW), a free, virtual educational platform streamed on most social media platforms was developed to provide global oncology education through biweekly programming. Its leading show, Keynote Conference, features live virtual presentations from oncology’s premier global leaders discussing the latest developments in the field before a mainstream global audience. The aim of this study was to assess the worldwide reach and impact of this cost-free, virtual oncology education platform. Methods: From January 2022 to February 2023, MNW hosted 33 global leaders as Keynote Speakers discussing the latest developments in oncology. Viewership, impressions, and outreach data were collected from MNW’s social media accounts and Tweepmaps. Data was analyzed to assess MNW’s global reach and engagement and stratified based on engagement sentiment, gender, age group, and occupation. Results: During this period, MNW produced a healthcare social grasp score of 64% and generated over 64,000 Twitter impressions engaging 1.9 million viewers over 13 months in the US, UK, Ireland, India, France, and 16 lower socioeconomic (SE) countries and 99 cities. Most of the followers were from non-healthcare fields with more males than females (Table). Those who engaged conveyed positive sentiments (64%) contributing to a viewership increase from 47,589 (6 months) to 61,539 (1 year), where 60% of the audience was found to originate from lower SE regions globally. Conclusions: MNW has demonstrated an ability to attract and sustain a diverse, global, growing mainstream audience. Given MNW’s continued growth, it provides a proof-of-concept model to engage and disseminate medical information to mainstream audiences. The platform’s ability to showcase global leaders to mainstream audiences gratuitously, especially in lower SE regions that have been historically underserved, offers a practical approach to combat educational inequity. Consequently, such a platform has demonstrated great potential to positively impact global oncology education. Demographics of MedNews Week’s audience. [Table: see text]