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YouTube as a Source of Information on Air Pollution: Significance for Community Health

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Abstract

Air pollution is a pervasive global public health threat. The purpose of this study was to assess the content of 100 widely viewed English language YouTube videos on air pollution using the search term ‘air pollution.’ Content categories were created using comprehensive fact sheets and were coded as being present or not in each video. Cumulatively, the 100 videos sampled received 32,826,294 views and 303,692 likes, with averages of 328,263 and 3,068 respectively. The majority of videos (n = 72) were created by broadcast or internet-based news, 12 of the videos were created by professionals, 7 were created by a consumer and 9 were created by others. Three kinds of content were featured in a majority (> 50%) of the videos: “sources of pollution,” “environmental impacts,” and “solutions offered” and the videos covering each of these topics collectively garnered more than 26 million views and 249,000 likes. Independent one-tailed t-tests (α = 0.05) showed an association between covering sources of pollution and the number of views and likes. For both, videos featuring this content had a higher average number of views (467,391.08 vs. 80,924.03, p = .0383) and likes (4,450.78 vs. 647.03, p = .0383). Additionally, videos showing environmental impacts received more views than those that did not (547,901.49 vs. 80,585.43, p = .0373). This research can serve as a starting point to describe information being conveyed about an important global public health problem. Future research is needed to improve understanding about ways to utilize YouTube and other social media for public health education and advocacy to increase consumers’ awareness and facilitate the informed decision-making process.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Public Health, William Paterson University, 300 Pompton Rd, Wayne, NJ, 07470, USA

    Corey H. Basch & Helen Yousaf

  2. Department of Mathematics, Lehman College, The City University of New York , 250 Bedford Park Boulevard West, Bronx, NY, 10468, USA

    Joseph Fera

  3. Department of Health and Behavior Studies, Teachers College, Columbia University, 525 W 120th St, New York, NY, 10027, USA

    Charles E. Basch

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Contributions

CH Basch and CE Basch conceptualized the study. HY collected the data, JF conducted the data analysis. All authors contributed to the manuscript production.

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Correspondence to Corey H. Basch.

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The IRB at William Paterson considers this to be non-human subjects research, and therefore, it is not reviewed. The IRB at Teachers College, Columbia University determined this study to be exempt (Protocol #24–097).

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Basch, C.H., Yousaf, H., Fera, J. et al. YouTube as a Source of Information on Air Pollution: Significance for Community Health. J Community Health (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-024-01360-7

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