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Linking podcasts with social media is a strategy to promote and disseminate health and health research information to the community without constraints of time, weather, and geography.
To describe the process of creating a podcast library and promoting it on social media as a strategy for disseminating health and biomedical research topics to the community.
We used a community and patient engagement in research approach for developing a process to use podcasts for dissemination of health and health research information. We have reported the aspects of audience reach, impressions, and engagement on social media through the number of downloads, shares, and reactions posted on SoundCloud, Twitter, and Facebook, among others.
In collaboration with our local community partner, we produced 45 podcasts focused on topics selected from a community health needs assessment with input from health researchers. Episodes lasted about 22 minutes and presented health-related projects, community events, and community resources, with most featured guests from Olmsted County (24/45, 53%). Health research was the most frequently discussed topic. Between February 2016 and June 2017, episodes were played 1843 times on SoundCloud and reached 1702 users on our Facebook page.
This study demonstrated the process and feasibility of creating a content library of podcasts for disseminating health- and research-related information. Further examination is needed to determine the best methods to develop a sustainable social media plan that will further enhance dissemination (audience reach), knowledge acquisition, and communication of health topics.
Social media presents a powerful tool for reaching, engaging, and connecting individuals for public health and health promotion [
Integrating technology, such as podcasts into traditional health care communication or dissemination models, is an effective and practical strategy for not only delivering quality health-related information to the public, such as clinical practice changes, education, and health research [
The idea for developing podcasts arose from a discussion during a community advisory board meeting about the need to transfer the content of a Science Café to the Web-based realm. Science Cafés are in-person, casual events that encourage two-way conversations about health- or science-related topics between scientists, health practitioners, and the lay public to enhance health literacy, trust, and colearning. A series of these events had been recently conducted in the community, and they were termed as “garden cafés,” as many had taken place in community gardens. While successful in stimulating conversation and idea exchange, the reach of these cafés was limited due to the barriers of geography, weather, and time. Therefore, the decision was made to create a series of health-related podcasts based upon a recent community health needs assessment that would provide an extensive library of topics to share via social media. Therefore, our team decided to incorporate another social media platform to disseminate community health and medical research information. The Mayo Clinic Center for Clinical and Translational Science’s Community Engagement Program (CEP) had a strong social media presence. The program had a WordPress blog, Twitter page, and Facebook page [
The development of meaningful podcast content was supported by CEP and Smartride Network. Our partner, Smartride Network, is a collaborative, community-based organization that hosts a variety of cultural, art, health, and biomedical research programs. To select topics for podcasts, we referred the Olmsted County Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) [
The podcast team decided to focus the first few episodes on community-identified health and wellness needs. The systematic community-engaged approach involved Olmsted County Public Health Services, Olmsted Medical Center, Mayo Clinic, and several community service organizations jointly collecting data from residents on their health needs [
Guests were invited in-person by the host or other team members to share their stories. We determined the credibility of guest speakers by exploring local content expertise. For national and international speakers, we connected with the organizers of a number of speaker series at our academic medical center (eg, Grand Rounds and other medical seminars) to ask visiting faculty to create a podcast during their visit. Guests shared their stories related to community priorities and biomedical research.
The episode format consisted of the following:
Welcome and introduction by the host and guest
Guest describes the personal journey that led to current work
Guest shares current projects, findings, resources, and engagement opportunities for listeners
Guest creates the titles of the episodes with the host to enhance promotion in their networks
Host concludes each episode with a call-to-action to follow our social media platforms and for listeners to share the podcasts with their networks
We used a CPER research approach to determine sponsorship for podcast recording equipment and to prioritize episode creation. This approach involved working directly with the CEP, local community partners, and health care providers. The podcast design process focused on audience and delivery. We recognized that the podcast alone does not foster communication and information dissemination like other forms of social media. Therefore, it was linked to other interactive social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook, where listeners could comment and post reactions.
Our primary target audience for the podcasts was residents of Olmsted County, MN, with an interest in learning about (1) health and wellness; (2) community events; (3) opportunities for civic engagement; and (4) biomedical research. The podcast featured guests from local agencies, nonprofits, the health department, community members, and academic researchers (local, national, and international) [
SoundCloud was selected as the main hosting platform for the podcast [
An open, searchable Facebook page, called Community Board, was created for consistency in branding the community podcast initiative. The episodes were listed on the CEP WordPress blog and Twitter account. A Rich Site Summary feed was used to ensure that the podcast was accessible on mobile devices and computers [
We assessed podcast reach using available social media analytics from SoundCloud and our CEP Facebook and Twitter pages. The SoundCloud analytics allowed us to capture information on social media engagement (ie, likes, reposts, and comments). Other analytics provided information on (1) episode length in minutes and seconds, (2) number of times the podcast was played, and (3) geographic location of listeners [
The Community Board Podcast produced 45 episodes with 1843 cumulative plays, 728 of which occurred between February 2016 and June 2017 (
In the first 6 months of the podcast, 21 episodes were produced (
From February 2016 to June 2017, the top 5 episodes played were (1) Women’s Health-Uterine Fibroids (n=119), (2) The Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council, Incorporated (n=104), (3) Wellconnect SE MN (n=80), (4) Black History Month Meet the Researcher–Camara Phyllis Jones, MD (n=72), and (5) Music is Medicine to the People (n=66). The average episode length was 22 minutes and 19 seconds (SD 12 minutes and 25 seconds). The podcast received 1846 cumulative plays between February 2016 and June 2017. There were 1653 listeners in the United States, with 590 in Olmsted County, MN, and 193 were from other countries. The top played episodes featured guests with a strong social media presence. After publishing the episodes, we linked them directly to our WordPress blog, Facebook, and Twitter accounts, allowing the guests to share the posts with their stakeholders.
Podcast episodes since February 2016.
Episode titles | Geographic focus | Episode theme | Publication date | Length in minutes | Total plays |
Introduction to Community Board | Local | Resource | February 2016 | 8:07 | 44 |
KnuFunk Band | Local | Art & Culture | February 2016 | 14:47 | 43 |
Three Rivers Community Action | Local | Resources | February 2016 | 11:50 | 22 |
Black History Month Meet the Researcher – Camara Phyllis Jones, MD | National | Research | February 2016 | 14:22 | 72 |
Artist Bobby Marines’ New Work | Local | Art & Culture | March 2016 | 18:00 | 52 |
Wellconnect SE MN | State | Research | March 2016 | 16:29 | 80 |
Women’s History Month | Local | Art & Culture | March 2016 | 8:47 | 36 |
stART-up Fund Program | Local | Art & Culture | April 2016 | 10:24 | 21 |
Women’s Health-Uterine Fibroids | National | Research | April 2016 | 22:10 | 119 |
RNeighbors #RochMN | Local | Resource | April 2016 | 16:53 | 32 |
Dr. Paul Spaicer Learning with Natives Communities | National | Research | April 2016 | 22:53 | 68 |
Black Hair Politics of Beauty | Local | Art & Culture | April 2016 | 12:14 | 52 |
Airbnb and Research | International | Research | April 2016 | 18:33 | 26 |
Art on the Ave | Local | Art & Culture | April 2016 | 16:19 | 25 |
Learn about Uterine Fibroids and Underwater Hockey | National | Research | May 2016 | 21:01 | 66 |
The Commission #RochMN | Local | Resource | May 2016 | 28:12 | 31 |
#Prince, Blues, and BBQ | Local | Resource | May 2016 | 22:04 | 47 |
Mission 21 Sex Trafficking | Local | Resource | May 2016 | 53:18 | 35 |
The Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council, Inc. | National | Research | June 2016 | 32:30 | 104 |
Affordable Housing-Volunteer Opportunities | Local | Resource | June 2016 | 26:45 | 41 |
Juneteenth Commemorating the Ending of Slavery in US | Local | Art & Culture | June 2016 | 10:39 | 31 |
Community Prioritization Session #CHNA | Local | Research | July 2016 | 11:35 | 32 |
NAMI Mental Health Resources | Local | Resource | September 2016 | 30:02 | 30 |
Day of the Dead Poet Slam | Local | Art & Culture | October 2016 | 20:50 | 30 |
Your Local Farmers Market | Local | Research | October 2016 | 24:09 | 40 |
BMG Basement Music Group | Local | Art & Culture | November 2016 | 18:06 | 43 |
MondayCampaings.org | National | Research | November 2016 | 8:59 | 34 |
Clinical-Scholars.org | National | Research | November 2016 | 19:35 | 34 |
Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) | International | Research | November 2016 | 13:28 | 48 |
Men’s Health Caucus 1 | National | Research | November 2016 | 8:12 | 43 |
Men’s Health Caucus 2 | National | Research | Novembers 2016 | 9:50 | 24 |
Men’s Health Caucus 3 | National | Research | December 2016 | 18:30 | 30 |
Improving Health Globally by Studying Health Locally | National | Research | December | 33:27 | 51 |
Youth and Men’s Health Caucus 4 | National | Research | December 2016 | 7:05 | 29 |
Working Together to Strengthen Our Future | Local | Resource | December 2016 | 22:38 | 44 |
Music is Medicine to the People | National | Research | January 2017 | 52:10 | 66 |
The Power of Movement Dr. James Levine | National | Research | January 2017 | 56:59 | 41 |
Community Interfaith Dialogue on #islam | Local | Art & Culture | February 2017 | 44:44 | 35 |
Girls on the Run #RochMN | Local | Resource | March 2017 | 16:44 | 22 |
Diversity Council | Local | Resource | April 2017 | 24:12 | 32 |
South Side Community Health Services | State | Research | April 2017 | 22:28 | 27 |
Main Street Project | State | Resource | May 2017 | 46:02 | 30 |
Indigenous Smoking An Australian Perspective | International | Research | May 2017 | 28:20 | 19 |
Health Disparities Study in South Africa | International | Research | May 2017 | 29:43 | 5 |
Bee Keeping Year 1 | Local | Resource | June 2017 | 30:23 | 7 |
Analytics for the first 6 months of community board podcasts.
Analytics | Values n (%) | |
February | 6 (28.6) | |
March | 3 (14.3) | |
April | 7 (33.3) | |
May | 2 (9.5) | |
June | 2 (9.5) | |
July | 1 (4.8) | |
February | 103 (14.1) | |
March | 163 (22.4) | |
April | 189 (26.0) | |
May | 116 (15.9) | |
June | 146 (20.1) | |
July | 11 (1.5) | |
February | 6 (14.3) | |
March | 5 (11.9) | |
April | 6 (14.3) | |
May | 17 (40.5) | |
June | 8 (19.0) | |
July | 0 (0) | |
February | 0 (0) | |
March | 0 (0) | |
April | 0 (0) | |
May | 1 (50.0) | |
June | 1 (50.0) | |
July | 0 (0) | |
SoundCloud Apps, Embedded, and Mobile | 498 (69.0) | |
Apple Core Media and iTunes | 80 (11.1) | |
Rich Site Summary Feed | 144 (19.9) |
In addition to determining the number of plays, we wanted to see additional social media engagement of the podcast. During the reporting period, we had 70 likes for the podcasts, suggesting that these listeners “liked” or enjoyed that episode. We also had a total of 4 reposts from listeners to other social media sites. The analytics did not allow us to see beyond one repost from our originating site, so it is possible that there were further shares or reposts, but they cannot be tracked. We had 3 listeners comment on episodes and 3 listeners download episodes.
The Community Board Podcast produced 45 episodes with most featuring local speakers. Most of the listeners for the podcast were from the United States, with a small portion from other countries. We used existing social media platforms to promote the podcasts and asked community stakeholders to promote the episodes to their stakeholders. The episodes that garnered the greatest number of listeners were those related to biomedical research topics, with women’s health having the most total plays.
Podcasts are an emerging strategy for dissemination of pertinent issues in the community with the potential to raise awareness and increase knowledge of health and wellness as well as biomedical research. We purposefully selected podcasts as a social media platform because they allowed us to create quality content that was sharable within the community without limitations of time, audience reach, geography, or weather with our stakeholders. This platform has proven to be effective with diverse communities. Olmsted County, MN, is the 8thlargest county in the state, with Hennepin County being the largest with continued growth in the community due to a new public-private economic initiative called Destination Medical Center [
Using health priorities identified by community members through the CHNA as the basis for the initial podcasts proved to be a strength. These topics led to more direct conversations with stakeholders (ie, community members, patients, service providers, and biomedical researchers) on potential topics of interest. Another strength was the ease in linking podcasts to other social media platforms, which allowed a larger audience to experience, interact with, and discuss the podcasts in their own social networks. Unfortunately, we were unable to fully track the depth of reach of our podcasts with the available analytics or to capture an increase in knowledge since we did not include an evaluation measure for knowledge gain. Future studies should use more in-depth analytic programs for tracking audience reach and interaction. Future studies could employ experimental designs to assess knowledge gain, audience reach, and longer-term consequences on health and wellness, clinical practice, and biomedical research.
One significant strength and key feature of the podcast is that it relates directly to recommendations from Dr Christopher Austin, Director of National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), who advised us in an interview that researchers, “must talk in language the public can understand” [
While our results show that developing and promoting health- and research-related podcasts is feasible, more research is needed to determine the best ways to develop and promote these educational sessions to maximize audience reach (ie, number of downloads, shares, reactions, and reposts). An understanding of audience reach will stimulate colearning, thus increasing the knowledge of both community members and health care practitioners or researchers. For instance, podcasts are a platform often used in Free Open Access Medical education (FOAM). The FOAM movement has altered the way health care practitioners interact with each other and serves as a supplement to traditional pedagogical methods to increase the knowledge of medical learners [
Future directions for the podcast include developing and evaluating novel ways to better track active engagement and knowledge increase of listeners. The evaluation process should include the application of Kirkpatrick’s model level 1 and 2 to determine listeners’ reactions and knowledge gain from listening to the podcast [
In conclusion, our study suggests that podcasts linked with other social media platforms are a feasible strategy for sharing and stimulating communication about health and biomedical information to a wide audience without barriers of time, geography, and weather. These preliminary results will inform the development of a large-scale trial of Social Media Garden Cafés (podcasts linked with social media) to educate and empower communities, health providers, and biomedical researchers for improving health care research and delivery.
Community Engagement Program
Community Health Needs Assessment
community and patient engagement in research
Free Open Access Medical
National Institutes of Health
This publication was made possible by Clinical and Translational Science Awards Grant Number UL1TR002377 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, a component of NIH. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official view of NIH. We thank Michelle Lewis for editing and formatting assistance.
None declared.