protocol 

1. Title of the project:  Exploring Role Of Social Media In Enhancing Public Health Awareness

2. Type of Study:  Quantitative Cross-Sectional Study .

(Prospective / retrospective / epidemiological / clinical : single center or          multi centric / cohort / case control etc - indicate whichever applicable)           

3. Aims & objectives (hypotheses if applicable):  Aim of the study is to exploring the perception of people on social media campaign and to analysis how does it help in creating public health awareness and education.

Objectives of the study are -

To understand the usage of health apps

To identify factors that prompt individuals to use social media

To explore the impact of social media campaign

4. Justification for study (whether of national significance with rationale) : It is stated in the facts around on an average people spent 2.4hrs on social media in a day.as this study intends to analyze the effect of social media on enhancing health care awareness the findings of the study will give further Insite of positively using social media. This study will help the policy makers and government of India to use social media as a platform to enhance the health care awareness among the general public so in addition the study out comes will also be useful for healthcare administration in promotion of healthcare services.

5. Departments involved: Department of social and health innovation, Prasanna school of public health (PSPH).

6. Study period: 10 months (oct2023-may2024)

7. Sample size :  (z² P(1-P))/C²

                          = (1.96²*0.5*(1 - 0.5))/ (0.05²)

                          = (3.8416*0.5*0.5)/0.0025

                          =0.9604/0.0025

                          =384.16

                          = 384

8. Materials and methods:    

a) Inclusion and exclusion criteria :  inclusion- Adults above age of 18 years who are competent to use mobile and willing to participate.

Exclusion- Minor individuals and who are not mentally sound not competent to participant.

b) Biological materials required (type - blood, tissue etc and quantity) : Not Applicable  

c) Statistical methods : Descriptive Analysis using Jamovi statistical tools ( descriptive    analysis of demographic, reliability test , ANOVA, regression test , test will be alone to analyze and test the hypothesis) .

d) Tools used: Jamovi

9. Detailed description of procedure / processes:  The research utilizes a quantitative cross-sectional method with an exploratory and descriptive design. To confirm the research’s conceptual model and to examine the research hypotheses, a survey questionnaire was conducted to collect data. This research’s target population consisted of general public above age of 18 years who are competent to use mobile in India. A convenience sampling technique will be used. The researcher will be reaching to the respondents who can read and write English language using email and mobile contacts. Consequently, a sample size of 385 respondents will be collected. The questionnaire consisted of two sections; the first section in the questionnaire presents general personal information about a respondent, gender, age, occupation, and educational level. The second section includes questions to measure the independent and dependent variables. The questionnaire’s content was mainly selected and adopted from relevant previous studies using 5-points Likert scale. Ranging from strongly disagree = 1 to strongly agree = 5 to measure four independent variables: social media network, public awareness, health applications, behavioral change, and public protection. In contrast, the dependent variables, namely type of message appeal, and source of the message, were measured using points on a Likert scale ranging from not necessary at all = 1 to very important = 5.

10. Outcome measures: Awareness and Behavioral Change.  

11. Potential risks and benefits : As it is a quantitative cross sectional study using question aims at minimum risk for the respondents in terms of confidentiality of one information. How ever researcher inform ensures that the personal info of respondent are not disclosed publicly.

12. Ethical considerations and methods to address issues :  As the study consider human respondent the researcher will be applying for seeking approved of institutional ethical committee.

13. Budget (give details) and proposed funding source :  Not Applicable

14. Review of literature (within 1000 words) :  

In order to conduct this research the researcher have used google scholar , Scopus and springer database for the study exploring role of social media in enhancing public health awareness in order to seek information from the already published reference materials .The researcher have used social media, digital media and public health awareness as keywords in order to identify the suitable reference materials by going through their abstract , objective, methodology, findings, and limitations of the study.

Maximum articles focus on the objective in order to investigate the role of social media and mobile application in enhancing employee health (8), spreading health information for prevention of disease (5), creating awareness among general public(10) and increasing health related knowledge and measuring how deeply this knowledge is inculcated in their behavior(3). But few articles focus on type of message design and how they have impacted people’s mind (10). The methodology used in these studies were quantitative (3)(1)(10), cross-sectional (2), and randomized control trail (4)(8)(9). These studies took a lowest sample size of 61(9) and highest sample size of 2555(1), however on an average sample size range from 247(4)-782(3).

However, maximum articles states that the correct use of social media through mobile apps can enhance the public health and there is a significant positive effect in enhancing public health awareness and there is a deep impact of social media and mobile applications in changing the public behavior (10) on a contrary one study suggest that social media and mobile application is only beneficial for English speaking people (9). However, by going through already published research. Researcher found there were no research as such which is conducted in context to Indian scenario related to the use of social media in public health awareness. Therefore, this thing gave researcher a clear idea for her topic selection.