Abstract
This retrospective study sought to assess the association between the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil and the quality of educational materials published in the official profiles of Brazilian government health agencies on Instagram. Posts about COVID-19, published between January 31 and August 15, 2021, were selected, dated, quantified and classified according to their content by three researchers. Public’s engagement was calculated by the number of likes, comments and views. The quality of the educational posts was assessed by two trained and calibrated researchers (Kappa intra and inter-examiners, k=0.96 and k=0.92, respectively), using the Brazilian version of the Clear Communication Index (BR-CDC-CCI), the number of new COVID-19 cases was collected using the COVID-19 epidemic calculator provided by PAHO at https://covid-calc.org/. The relationship between the evolution of the COVID-19 indicator and the quality of educational posts was calculated using the statistical model of a fortnightly time series. On average, educational posts reached 6.4 in the BR-CDC-CCI score (median = 6.5). In the multiple model adjusted for the amount of educational posts and public engagement, it was observed that for each increase of one point in the BR-CDC-CCI score, there was a reduction of 327,864 new cases of Covid-19 (p <0.001). It was concluded that there was a relationship between the low quality of posts and the greater number of new cases of the disease, indicating the need for greater attention from Brazilian government agencies with the quality of information made available on social networks to help control the COVID-19 pandemic.
Highlights
Since the end of 2019, the world has been on constant alert due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and global society has been undergoing an unprecedented rupture
The data from the present research are a part of a broader study, begun on January 31, 2020 and is still ongoing, which seeks to analyze the relationship between the content regarding COVID-19 posted on the social media of three spheres of the Brazilian government and official indicators of the evolution of the pandemic in the country
It was decided to collect data regarding official communications on health posted on Instagram, the researches verified that there was a great overlapping of content concerning COVID-19 when comparing the profiles of the Brazilian Ministry of Health (MH) and the National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA, in Portuguese) on this social media network and on their official websites
Summary
Since the end of 2019, the world has been on constant alert due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and global society has been undergoing an unprecedented rupture. The easy transmission of SARS-CoV-2 made its fast dissemination throughout the world possible, causing deaths and severe conditions of morbidity. All of this has resulted in an overload on health systems, requiring emergency public action. Since there were no available vaccines in the early months of the pandemic, and considering that there is no proven antiviral treatment, health authorities have been strongly recommending the adoption of measures of individual protection and social distancing as the most important means through which to contain the disease. It could be presumed that individual behavior collectively influences the pandemic’s evolution. For these measures, as well as any proposed preventive therapy, to be successful, it is necessary for the population to adhere to the measures
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