“The value we provide is around having tailored content for different cultures, languages, reading ages and learning styles. From that point of view, I think we are covering a lot of the gaps in the conventional health literature. I think that the lived experiences content we have on the platform is not neces- sarily available on the NHS website or elsewhere – and that’s a way of bringing a condition or treatment to life that is very difficult to do with a patient leaflet.”
Many motives
“There’s a whole spectrum of motives [for using YouTube health content],” Vishaal explains. “A lot of healthy peo- ple are searching for preventative health information such as ‘how do I exercise to prevent high blood pressure?’ or ‘how to exercise to prevent diabetes?’ We also see queries such as ‘I’ve been told to have a certain procedure by my doctor. My doctor did explain it in the consult and gave me a leaflet, but I would like to explore it in more detail because there’s a limit to how much I can learn in 10 minutes’.”
But he added: “Many people are also going onto YouTube to learn about a chronic disease, because 99 per cent of the time you manage chronic diseases on your own, outside of the clinic set- ting. So there’s only so much a clinician can do. The emphasis is then on what you can do to look after yourself and there is a lot of supportive content on YouTube about chronic disease.” Growing public awareness of specific issues can also drive interest, according to Vishaal: “I would say mental health topics are amongst the most commonly searched health topics on the platform. It’s very dynamic, but in general we’re seeing significant interest in mental health topics, as we’ve seen higher prev-
YouTube health sources
Dr Vishaal Virani.
alence of mental health issues amongst the general population in the pandemic and post-pandemic.”
Librarians
Vishaal adds that YouTube already has a role to play in many aspects of librari- anship and raising awareness of content to broader audiences: “In academic and public libraries another factor is Open Access to medical journals. Increasingly, medical journals are creating bite-sized videos about their publications, but also
librarians could assist their users in better understanding a research study which they may have seen but didn’t make much sense of.” He added that: “Our conversations with
CILIP and attending the CILIP conference, is about helping make as many librarians as possible aware of the YouTube health initiative, and the credible health informa- tion available on the platform. And also that YouTube is a place you should feel comfortable directing your library visitors to for health information.”
Conference
As part of this aim to elevate reliable content, Vishaal is communicating with the library sector and will be one of the panellists for the Supporting Health and Digital Literacy session at this year’s CILIP Conference. Chaired by Debbie Hicks, Creative Director, Read Well Campaign, The Reading Agency, the panel will discuss the role of the librarian in pointing service users towards authoritative health informa- tion. With his co-panellist, Sophie Randall the Director of Patient Information Forum, he will consider the relationship between health and digital literacy and the work that ‘big tech’ platforms, in partnership with clinicians and content creators, are doing to increase access and awareness of authoritative information online. IP
l Book your place at CILIP Conference in Birmingham
atwww.cilipconference.org.uk.
June 2024 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 23
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