Effects of a large-scale social media advertising campaign on holiday travel and COVID-19 infections: a cluster randomized controlled trial.

ABSTRACT: During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, many health professionals used social media to promote preventative health behaviors. We conducted a randomized controlled trial of the effect of a Facebook advertising campaign consisting of short videos recorded by doctors and nurses to encourage users to stay at home for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays ( NCT04644328 and AEARCTR-0006821 ). We randomly assigned counties to high intensity (n = 410 (386) at Thanksgiving (Christmas)) or low intensity (n = 410 (381)). The intervention was delivered to a large fraction of Facebook subscribers in 75% and 25% of randomly assigned zip codes in high- and low-intensity counties, respectively. In total, 6,998 (6,716) zip codes were included, and 11,954,109 (23,302,290) users were reach

SUBMITTER: Breza E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8440209 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature