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Harvard assembles influencer team to support mental health

October 19, 2023

In this field experiment, influencers who received talking points from Harvard were 3% more likely to post content on the core themes researchers had provided them, equating to 800,000 views on the mental health-related material. (Barry, 2023)

• A total of 42 social media influencers with various backgrounds were selected based on reach and content quality and were provided digital toolkits centered on five key themes: difficulty accessing care, intergenerational trauma, mind-body links, the effect of racism on mental health, and climate anxiety.
• A smaller group of 25 influencers were invited to attend virtual forums, united on a group Slack channel, and hosted at Harvard. Researchers then monitored the influencers’ feeds to measure how much of Harvard’s material made it online.
• Although not all of the creators promoted the content, developing digital toolkits was deemed an inexpensive and easy way to distribute evidence-based information to a vulnerable, hard-to-reach population.

Source:

Barry, E. (2023, October 16). The New York Times. Harvard Cozies Up to #MentalHealth TikTok. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/health/mental-health-tiktok-harvard.html