Clinical Infectious Diseases Advance Access published April 15, 2015
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Correspondence Instagram and Clinical Infectious Diseases TO THE EDITOR—We read the article by Goff et al [1] with great interest regarding the relevance of social media (SM) platform Twitter to infectious diseases clinicians. We concur with the authors regarding the relevance of SM tools to infectious diseases practice and wish to call attention to the photograph-based SM platform, Instagram, as an emerging site of interest. Instagram is a free SM platform launched in October of 2010 that has been a part of Facebook, Inc., since April
2012 [2]. The platform reports a community of 300 million users as of December 2014. Each day users from around the world (>70% are outside the US) register >2.5 billion “likes” and share >70 million photos. Data from an American survey in September 2014 indicate 26% of online adults use Instagram, and half of Internet users age 18 to 29 years of age use Instagram [3]. Beyond the large number of engaged adults (particularly young adults), it is notable that about half of all Instagram users access the site at least once daily. Posts on Instagram are shared as an image, which may be paired with a text
of up to 2200 characters, including up to 30 hashtags. Similar to Twitter, Instagram does not require users to mutually connect; users may listen (view posts) or talk (share content) and users may “like” posts (similar to a “favorite” on Twitter). Privacy settings may be modified to allow open access to posted content (even persons without an Instagram account) or access only to those granted permission. Once a user elects to “follow” another’s account, that account’s posts will appear in the user’s feed (similar to the news feed of Facebook or the home stream of Twitter). An Instagram account can be
Table 1. Instagram Accounts of Potential Interest to Infectious Diseases Specialists Handlea
Account Owner
Typical Post Description
Followers (n)b
Accounts from organizations @ASMicrobiology
American Society of Microbiology
Microbiology-oriented images, text varies
2751
@CDCGOV
United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Crowdsourced photo-sharing for healthcare professionals
Awareness and educational materials as well as credible health and safety information Medical images accompanied by brief descriptive text
3695
@MayoClinic
Clinic practice, education and research institution
Miscellaneous images and text generally aimed towards raising awareness for a variety of efforts
3407
@Zeiss_Microscopy
Microscopy Provider
Microscopy-oriented images, text varies
4863
Infectious Diseases Physician
Clinical images with descriptive and educational text
13 500
Infectious Diseases Pharmacist
2218
@Figure1
Accounts from individuals @Dr.Infection @IDstewardship
3516
@IMmemorandum
Not provided
Miscellaneous images with educational text centered around infectious diseases pharmacotherapy education Internal medicine images with brief descriptive text
@MedLabMaven
Medical Laboratory Scientist
Microbiology-oriented images with educational text
490
@MedicalBoardReview
Not provided
Images of multiple choice practice board questions geared towards a variety of healthcare professionals
15 300
@MicrobiologyLab
Medical Microbiology PhD Candidate
Microbiology-oriented images, at times with descriptive text
@MicrobioLab
Microbiology student
Microbiology-oriented images with brief descriptive text
@ResidentERdoc
Emergency medicine physician
Radiographic, wound and other emergency medicine-based images with descriptive text
5303
@Stylish_Streaking
Medical Technician
Microbiology-oriented images with educational text
2243
a
Unrestricted accounts can be openly accessed at www.instagram.com/[insert handle] (eg, www.instagram.com/ASMicrobiology).
b
Follower count last updated 9 March 2015.
CORRESPONDENCE
5465
3548 658
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linked to other SM accounts (eg, Twitter, Facebook) to enable simultaneous crosspublishing of Instagram posts, thus extending the reach of Instagram content to non-Instagram users. This is particularly relevant for connecting with the most commonly used SM platform, Facebook [3]. SM is identified as an emerging field of research in medical education [4]; however, for Instagram a dearth of literature and policy statements exist describing its role in this regard. One publication from the field of dermatology recognizes Instagram as a unique mechanism for reaching younger demographic populations ( particular females), noting its potential to provide educational content [5]. Although hard data are lacking, numerous Instagram profiles exist today that are relevant to healthcare and infectious diseases. Table 1 provides a nonexhaustive list of Instagram accounts that may be of interest to the infectious diseases community. With its current user demographics, growing popularity and frequent user
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engagement, Instagram has great potential to be utilized as a mechanism for raising awareness, establishing inter-professional collaborations, and providing education to (1) future healthcare providers, (2) current healthcare providers, and (3) the general public. In this era of technological advancement and antimicrobial resistance we encourage infectious diseases clinicians to not only engage on SM platforms but also diversify their engagement. Notes Disclaimer. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the the United States government. Potential conflicts of interest. All authors: No potential conflicts of interest. All authors have submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest. Conflicts that the editors consider relevant to the content of the manuscript have been disclosed.
Timothy P. Gauthier1 and Earlene Spence2 1
Department of Pharmacy, Infectious Diseases and Antimicrobial Stewardship Pharmacist, and
2
Department of Pharmacy, Post-Graduate Year-1 Pharmacy Practice Resident, Miami Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, Florida
References 1. Goff DA, Kullar R, Newland JG. Review of Twitter for infectious diseases clinicians: useful or a waste of time? Clin Infect Dis 2015; doi:10.1093/cid/civ071. 2. Instagram Press Page. Available at: https:// instagram.com/press/. Accessed 9 March 2015. 3. Pew Research Center. Social Media Update, 2014. Available at: http://www.pewinternet. org/2015/01/09/social-media-update-2014/. Accessed 9 March 2015. 4. Cheston CC, Flickinger TE, Chisolm MS. Social media use in medical education: a systematic review. Acad Medc 2013; 88:893–901. 5. Karimkhani C, Connett J, Boyers L, Quest T, Dellavalle RP. Dermatology on Instagram. Dermatol Online J 2014; 20. Correspondence: Timothy P. Gauthier, PharmD, BCPS-AQ ID, Antimicrobial Stewardship Pharmacist, Miami Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, Department of Pharmacy, 1201 NW 16th St, Miami, FL 33125 (
[email protected] or
[email protected]). Clinical Infectious Diseases® © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.
[email protected]. DOI: 10.1093/cid/civ248
