Using behavioural science to design public health social media campaigns

Communicating health risks via social media is an important objective for public health organisations. Behavioural science theoretical constructs can help enhance the design, implementation and evaluation of social media campaigns. In this Practice article, we document the WHO’s experience in developing social media messaging using gist and verbatim constructs to influence risk perceptions related to measles and intentions related to measles vaccination. We share our experience to support other public health communication practitioners who may seek to incorporate behavioural science into their social media campaigns to achieve desired shifts in health-related attitudes and intentions in target audiences.