Q&A: Solidifying social media platforms' role in global health

Amid the pandemic, social media platforms have played a key role in information dissemination, especially among more vulnerable populations. If this moment isn’t used as an opportunity to take that collaboration between technology and global health forward, that would be the biggest mistake the industry has made, according to Andy Pattison, manager of digital solutions at the World Health Organization.

“The tech industry has been amazing in supporting with either pro bono support or pro bono goods like advertising, and generous in donations to solidarity funds to help move the global health agenda,” Pattison said. “My biggest worry is that this stops after COVID-19.”

The pandemic, he said, should be the beginning of tech companies’ role in supporting efforts to tackle other deadly health issues, such as noncommunicable diseases.

“What are we doing about obesity, diabetes, and heart disease in some countries? What are we doing about malaria and tuberculosis — some of the biggest killers on the planet?” Pattison asked.

“We have to have these companies thinking about the future, about vulnerable populations, women's health, access to information, and access to health care for people,” Pattison said, but this may not be so easy.

Speaking to Devex, he shared the value of such collaboration — how it started and where it goes from here — and his plans for keeping it alive post-pandemic.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

How has WHO’s Tech Taskforce been working with social media organizations to improve access to information?

First, we raise evidence-based content from authoritative institutions like WHO or ministries of health to ensure online audiences receive accurate health information. Our second pillar is fighting misinformation. At the beginning of the pandemic, WHO’s Tech Taskforce played a vital role in debunking numerous myths before they got out of hand. The third pillar is to gain user insights so we can tailor and target our limited resources.

We’ve learned that fighting misinformation is not just about debunking and flagging accounts, posts, channels, or even whole platforms; it also entails working with the policy, safety, and security teams. We'll sit down with them, listen to them, and say “this is our concern.”

All of the knowledge-sharing and collaborations can be traced back to the onset of the pandemic when Facebook lent us the premises of Menlo Park [its headquarters in California] to host a WHO-convened meeting. Companies like Facebook stepped forward and said “let's push content into countries where the disease is picking up.”

We've held virtual [meetings] every month since then. For any given meeting, we'll have around 30 companies join from large tech companies to medium and small ones. I'm trying to get a broad range of not just social media organizations, but also companies like Salesforce. The Bay Area Global Health Alliance has now joined that group and is making an incredible addition to that.

What happens in the meetings, and how will they help going forward?

Every month, I get WHO experts to come and speak to this group of people to share pressing health-related challenges and priorities to help keep their eye on the ball.

The second thing is to share experiences. I often get a member of the Tech Taskforce to present the projects they've done and share best practices. We’ve had Microsoft, Facebook, WhatsApp, Salesforce, and Google present their work to support the COVID-19 response.

We now have to pivot this platform to include other health issues; some companies are already embracing this while others are still thinking, “I'm just dealing with the COVID-19 response.”

Do you think there is willingness from those in the technology space to keep working on global health challenges?

It's clear that COVID-19 affects everybody, including people who are making decisions in these companies. Once you're affected personally by a disease or an illness, you're much more likely to be open to problem solving rather than thinking of your bottom line or your business. So from my point of view, I would say yes, it's great to see the tech industry and social media platforms come together to discuss and be as open as they can be without giving away their trade secrets.

At the same time, I am very concerned that this is only because the disease is knocking at the door of their own houses.

A couple of years ago, we were in the offices of a social media company asking them to remove content with regards to measles misinformation that wasn't really affecting them as a company or as individuals. The interest that I got was very minimal. I got very junior members of staff meeting me for a short amount of time, and yes, they were interested and yes, they said the right things, but the action that followed didn't really make any difference. Hundreds of people contracted measles in the small islands because of this misinformation on these platforms.

We have to use this as a learning point. When we combine health information based on science and evidence with the power and reach of the tech industry, we have the ability to ensure everyone — from those living on small island nations to major cosmopolitan cities — has the information they need to make healthy and safe decisions. We need tech companies to embrace this opportunity to solve some of the biggest health crises the planet is facing, from pandemic preparedness to climate change.

The Alliance for Advancing Health Online is “an initiative to advance public understanding of how social media and behavioral sciences can be leveraged to improve the health of communities around the world.” How might it help in your efforts?

Where the Alliance for Advancing Health Online comes in is in advancing research and the dissemination of it so it reaches those who need it to implement vaccine programs and improve health messaging. We have to start documenting and have peer-reviewed research to show what works and what doesn't on what platforms to what populations because not everything is going to work for everybody.

The alliance is accelerating the research exploring how best to use social media and digital platforms to address vaccine hesitancy. Key partners have given significant funds to allow academics, small actors, and nonprofits to get some budget to do projects.

This is one of the big mistakes that many organizations make when launching products — they want to build an app for everybody that works for everything in every language. Their product becomes so diluted that they actually serve nobody.

The magic of what the alliance can do is to gather this information in a space where we can start saying, “I need to reach this population. How do I do it?” We're going to get real evidence-based research results where we can say this platform works for that population. And that, for me, is very exciting.

This coverage, presented by the Bay Area Global Health Alliance, explores the intersection between technology, innovation, and health. How are tech, innovation, and cross-sector partnerships being leveraged to accelerate equitable access to health care?