AAP Voices Blog

Just over 80% of Puerto Ricans are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, making it the most vaccinated place in the U.S. This is a great success story, but it has taken a lot of effort.
I’m a pediatrician and the clinical director of a vaccination program in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the amount of vaccine misinformation I hear from people and see online is staggering. But health care professionals are an effective and trusted voice on social media to counteract these misleading and dangerous narratives, something that I think helped persuade many people here to get vaccinated.

Pediatricians have the knowledge to help families navigate the confusing and misleading messages they see posted on social networks by joining the conversation. Yes, you will be the target of some nasty remarks, but your expert and reasonable voice is needed.
I have never been a big social media user, and only infrequently accessed my personal Facebook page, but with the social distancing and isolation imposed by the COVID pandemic, social media became an important tool to communicate and maintain contact with the world.

“Pediatricians have the knowledge to help families navigate the confusing and misleading messages they see posted on social networks by joining the conversation.”

As the pandemic developed, social media networks became an active source of memes, recommendations, information, and misinformation. Every time I read misleading advice or information based in pseudoscience and with a lack of evidence, yet skillfully presented, I cringed, and even more when I heard it repeated by others as a matter of fact. Even family members would question my corrections of false statements in my effort to provide them with information based on science and facts.

With the rollout of the COVID vaccination, the misinformation on social media increased. The AAP, with a grant from the CDC, offered its chapters the opportunity to join in developing social media content to counteract the false statements and help promote pediatric COVID vaccination by providing training in the use of social media and funds to create ads.

This training provided the opportunity to learn how to create a promotion campaign and how to use the tools provided by the social media networks to post them.

Culturally adapted messages in Spanish were created and shared on the Instagram and Facebook pages of Puerto Rico AAP targeting the Puerto Rico population in the 18 to 65 age group. A total of 21 campaigns based on boosted posts and ads were created and posted.
Among the comments on these posts were accusations, defamatory remarks, and arguments based on misinformation, reflecting an international network of opponents to vaccination. Constant monitoring of comments was required to review the comments and hide the opposing messages to avoid a negative impact to the intended purpose of the ad or post.

These messages gave an insight into the arguments used in misinforming families about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, which helped further develop messages to correct the false statements. The posts and ads also received a lot of positive reactions and support and sparked an increase in followers.

The Puerto Rico AAP shared ads and posts from October 2021 through January 2022, adapting the themes of the campaigns to the changes in season and holidays: The best gift for Christmas is vaccinating and protecting your family against COVID; vaccinate your kids before Three Kings Day; and send your kids back to school protected. Families also were directed to HealthyChildren.org in Spanish for reliable information related to COVID and vaccination.

The campaigns had a total of 3,368,460 impressions, 33,920 unique link clicks, and reached 580,763 people. The social media campaigns allowed the dissemination of correct, science-based information, targeted to families.

All of us can help counter false information about vaccines, whether on social media, through efforts in our communities, or simply by talking to our patients’ families and our friends.