Social Media and Health Evidence Promotion. Presented by Sharon Manson Singer. Health Summit on Sustainable Health and Health Care. Sponsored by the Conference Board of Canada. October 31, 2012.

1. Sharon Manson Singer, PhD
EvidenceNetwork.ca
Professor, School of Public Policy
Simon Fraser University
October 31, 2012

2. EvidenceNetwork.ca links journalists with
health policy experts to provide access to
credible, evidence-based information.

3. EvidenceNetwork.ca is a non-partisan, web-
based project funded by the Canadian
Institutes of Health Research and the Manitoba
Health Research Council to make the
latest evidence on controversial health policy
issues available to the media.

4. The Canadian Health Accord is scheduled for renegotiation in
2014. Canadians will have to make decisions about many complex
health policy issues, including;
 Aging population impact
 Rising drug costs
 Health care accessibility
 Private sector financing/delivery
 User fees
 Sustainability of the healthcare system
 Mental health
 Diabetes
 Pharmaceutical Policy issues
EvidenceNetwork.ca is committed to working with the media to
build a healthy dialogue around Canadian healthcare.

5.  Recruit experts in health policy focusing on
the nine topics – approximately 70 Experts
 Currently setting up an International Panel to
provide comparative analyses which will be
approximately 30 – 40 Experts
 Get excellent advice from Independent Media
Advisory Board
 Participate in Conferences, Webinars,
Broadcast News to promote and discuss EN.ca

6.  Work directly with Journalists to talk about
Evidence and how to be more discerning of
what is being claimed
 Work directly and individually with Health
Experts to help them write 750 word op-eds
 Use a communication professional to liaise
with Press and review op-eds for readability

7.  Over 80 op-eds published in 300 major dailies since
April 2011
 Over 700 reprints in smaller community dailies
 Built a Twitter following – most important venue of
communication with over 2300 followers, mostly
journalists and health policy experts
 Facebook - <135 followers mostly health care
professionals
 Linked In which we use to promote our op-eds and
start discussions
 Built partnerships with a variety of news media
outlets and like-minded organizations
 Built a reputation for non-partisan, expert advice that
is credible and evidence-based and peer reviewed

8.  6000 page views in July 2012
 4500 page views in August 2012,
traditionally the lowest use month of the year
 5500 page views in September 2012
 For these months,Reddit is top, Globe and
Mail, Wikipedia, University Affairs, Pinterest
and Huffington Post are the biggest referral
sites to EvidenceNetwork.ca.

9.  Primary users of Social Media are Journalists
who use SM to promote their own work
 Younger demographic who were first
adopters
 Now reaching across all demographics
 Increasing use of Social Media in Health and
Health Care - new forms of patient care being
developed. See “Hello Health” in NYC, a clinic
that delivers video-based conferencing and
Tweets.

10.  http://www.healthcarecommunication.com/M
ain/Articles/9735.aspx accessed October 24,
2012. “Infographic: 7 steps for health care
social media success. Check out this cheat
sheet when planning your strategy.” By Ann
Tracy Mueller Posted: October 24, 2012

12. • www.EvidenceNetwork.ca
• Sharon Manson Singer, PhD
smansonsinger@gmail.com
• Noralou Roos, CM, PhD
noralou_Roos@cpe.umanitoba.ca
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