Injury prevention content in social media posts by Children's hospitals: a missed opportunity for education and advocacy.

Authors

Maneesha Agarwal, Jacqueline B Gluck, Zoe Fischman, Harleigh J Markowitz, Morgan Cantor, Zoë Teicher, Kristyn Jeffries, Wendy J Pomerantz

Published in

Injury epidemiology. Volume 13. Issue Suppl 1. Aug 14, 2026. Epub Aug 14, 2026.

Abstract

Preventable injuries are the leading cause of pediatric death. Most healthcare organizations and the general public engage in social media (SoMe) to disseminate and consume health-related information. It is unknown how frequently pediatric hospitals leverage their SoMe platforms to educate on injury prevention (IP) topics. We sought to better characterize SoMe messaging and IP content by children's hospitals.
This was a retrospective cross-sectional study of US children's hospitals' primary SoMe Facebook, Twitter/X, and Instagram accounts. Included hospitals were associated with Injury Free Coalition for Kids (IFCK), a current or past Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Injury Control and Research Center, a level I pediatric trauma center, or a pediatric surgery fellowship. Accounts established after 1/1/23 or covering adult health topics were excluded. Abstractors reviewed all available posts from 2023; posts were dichotomized into IP vs. non-IP content, with further subcategorization based on injury mechanisms and other topics covered. Descriptive statistics and frequencies with ranges were calculated. Chi-square analyses were used for comparisons between groups.
Of 82 unique hospitals with eligible SoMe accounts, all used Facebook and 69 (84.1%) used all 3 SoMe platforms. Of the 55,339 posts, 3,863 (7.0%) posts covered IP. Among IP posts, the most frequently covered specific topics were mental health/suicide, poisonings, and child passenger safety. Most non-IP posts were focused on general publicity/goodwill; other frequently covered medical categories were cardiac conditions, cancer, and neonatal diseases. Hospital affiliation with a pediatric surgery fellowship (X² = 93.79; p<.001) and IFCK (X² = 4.56; p=.03) were associated with more IP content. More affiliations with IP-oriented organizations were also associated with more IP content (X² = 119.8; p<.001).
Although children's hospitals have large SoMe followings, IP is rarely discussed. While ties to IP-oriented organizations improve coverage of IP content, this represents a critical missed opportunity to address the leading causes of pediatric deaths.

PMID:
42601623
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 15 Aug 2026.

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