SUMMARY: Falsehoods have been shown to spread faster and farther than accurate information, and research suggests that misinformation can have negative effects in the real world, such as amplifying controversy about vaccines and propagating unproven cancer treatments. Therefore, health misinformation on social media urgently requires greater action from those working in public health research and practice. (Source: US Library of Medicine) There is a huge opportunity to help online health seekers cut through health misinformation.
Pharma Websites
SUMMARY:
- DTC marketing is not the reason why prescription drugs cost so much.
- DTC ads raise awareness around health conditions.
- DTC ads do NOT lead to unnecessary Rxs.
- The FDA needs to study what people do when they see a DTC ad.
OPENING: Online health seekers decide whether to stay on your website within the first five seconds of landing on your homepage. They decide if your site addresses their questions after looking at 1.24 pages. Here are what I found in over two years of research with online health seekers.
SUMMARY: The number of visitors to your website doesn’t mean anything if you have high bounce rates and low page views/time on site. More than half of mobile users leave a website that takes more than three seconds to load, yet too many pharma sites are not optimized for mobile. Houston, we have a problem.
SUMMARY: Among US adults who looked for health information and used the internet for their most recent search, the percentage who reported accessing health information without frustration was stable during the study period (from 37.2% in 2008 to 38.5% in 2017). The percentage of online health information seekers reporting easily accessing health information did not meet the HP2020 objective. Continued efforts are needed to enable easy access to online health information among diverse populations. (Source: Public Health Reports)
KEY POINTS: The social media shutdown of far-right hate groups and speech is once again spotlighting freedom of speech issues. Whose responsibility is it to ensure that health information, for example, online is accurate and doesn’t lead to bad patient decisions? Pharma has an opportunity to help clarify misinformation via a content and personalization strategy.
Walk into any corporate pharma HQ, and you’re likely to see a mission statement that’s pure bullshit about how patients come first. We all know that Wall Street and sales come well before patients. Want proof? Just look at any pharma product website that is nothing but a sales brochure in a majority of cases.
SUMMARY: Searching for online health information has become more complicated and is often wrought with bad health information. Pharma product websites need to evolve and become a credible source of inline health information for people who are often lost in bad information online.