| Background: Health communication is a way to improve health literacy.The development of the Internet and the widespread use of smartphones have brought a new channel for health communication: short-video based health communication.At present,the situation of mobile phone use of rural residents and the short-video based health communication in China is unclear,therefore it is necessary to study the situation of mobile phone use of rural residents and the potential of short-video based health communication in rural China.Objectives: To analyze the possibility of using mobile phone based short-video to conduct health communication among rural residents by investigating the current situations of mobile phone use among rural residents and the health communication of smartphone app on the Internet,so as to provide a scientific basis for using mobile phone based short-video to undertake health communication and education.Methods: This study comprehensively analyzed the potential of health communication to rural residents through mobile phone based short video from four aspects: communicators/uploaders,media,audiences and communication effects.The study was divided into the following two stages: The first stage was a cross-sectional questionnaire survey in rural China,in which Yunnan Province,Shanxi Province,and Shandong Province were selected and Zhenyuan County of Pu ’er City and Yao ’an County of Chuxiong Prefecture in Yunnan Province,Lan County and Zhongyang County of Luliang City in Shanxi Province,and Shan County of Heze City and Changle County of Weifang City in Shandong Province were further selected as the study sites for investigating the status of mobile phones owned by rural residents.The survey contents include basic demographic information,types of mobile phones,mobile phone brands,commonly-used smartphone applications(app),the main purpose of using smartphones,and their daily screen time on smartphone.The second stage was to select Tik Tok and Kwai as the research subjects based on the survey results: Tik Tok and Kwai were the main smartphone app used by most survey respondents.We used 21 keywords such as "malignant tumor","hypertension","diabetes" and "cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases" to search and collect research data from the two abovementioned smartphone app: for each keyword,we collected 100 pieces of short videos from 100 different uploaders,the number of likes and comments of those videos as well as the number of fans and the registration information of those uploaders.These data collected from the two smartphone app were classified into 5 big categories of "chronic diseases","infectious diseases","mental diseases","accidental injuries" and "physical exercise",and 21 subcategories based on the above-mentioned 21 keywords for analysis.Results: This study investigated 3864 rural residents in 6 counties of 3provinces and the prevalence rates of mobile phone and smartphone ownership of survey respondents were 95.8% and 72.7%,respectively.Logistic regression analysis showed that those who are younger age(OR=0.900,95%CI=0.892～0.908,P<0.001),with higher education level(OR=1.890,95%CI=1.711～2.088,P<0.001)are more likely to have a smartphone;Compared with Shandong,rural residents in Shanxi are more likely to have a smartphone(OR=2.647,95%CI=2.102～3.332,P<0.001).The survey respondents used up to 9 smartphone app,of which 66.7% used "Tik Tok" 54.5% used "Kwai",and 37% reported that the main purpose of using smartphone was to watch short videos or live broadcasts.We finally collected information of 1652 and 1916 uploaders and their one piece of video from Tik Tok and Kwai respectively.From the five big keyword categories in the two app,"chronic disease" had the greatest number of uploaders: 1000 while the key word "mental diseases" had the lowest number of uploaders: 377.The median number of fans of Tik Tok uploaders was 240000,greater than that of Kwai at 63000,and the difference was statistically significant(Z=-15.34,P<0.01).In total,the median numbers of comments and likes of those videos from the two app was 21 and 274,respectively,and the median number of comments(Z=-7.01,P<0.01)and likes(Z=-16.48,P<0.01)of videos released by Tik Tok uploaders were both greater than those of Kwai.Conclusion: The prevalence rate of smartphone ownership of rural residents in China is high,and Tik Tok and Kwai are the commonly-used short-video smartphone app by rural residents,suggesting that smartphone-based short video has great potential for health communication among rural residents.Rural residents like to watch short videos,which is a favorable condition for using short videos to carry out health communication.Compared with Kwai,Tik Tok’s app has greater audiences and more interaction with users,better communication effect and greater potential for health communication.There has been almost no uploader based health communication specially targeted at rural residents in Tik Tok and Kwai,it is necessary to encourage and train short-video based health communicators who focus on rural residents,and be able to create vivid and easy-to-understand health short videos based on the needs and features of rural residents.Our research findings indicate that short-video smartphone app such as Tik Tok and Kwai have greater potential for health communication. |
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