Implementation of Digital Awareness Strategies to Engage Patients and Providers in a Lung Cancer Screening Program: Retrospective Study

BACKGROUND: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Despite mandated insurance coverage for eligible patients, lung cancer screening rates remain low. Digital platforms, including social media, provide a potentially valuable tool to enhance health promotion and patient engagement related to lung cancer screening (LCS). OBJECTIVE: The aim was to assess the effectiveness of LCS digital awareness campaigns on utilization of low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) and visits to institutional online educational content. METHODS: A pay-per-click campaign utilizing Google and Facebook targeted adults aged 55 years and older and caregivers aged 18 years and older (eg, spouses, adult children) with LCS content during a 20-week intervention period from May to September 2016. A concurrent pay-per-click campaign using LinkedIn and Twitter targeted health care providers with LCS content. Geographic target radius was within 60 miles of an academic medical center. Social media data included aggregate demographics and click-through rates (CTRs). Primary outcome measures were visits to institutional Web pages and scheduled LDCT exams. Study period was 20 weeks before, during, and after the digital awareness campaigns. RESULTS: Weekly visits to the institutional LCS Web pages were significantly higher during the digital awareness campaigns compared to the 20-week period prior to implementation (mean 823.9, SD 905.8 vs mean 51, SD 22.3, P=.001). The patient digital awareness campaign surpassed industry standard CTRs on Google (5.85%, 1108/18,955 vs 1.8%) and Facebook (2.59%, 47,750/1,846,070 vs 0.8%). The provider digital awareness campaign surpassed industry standard CTR on LinkedIn (1.1%, 630/57,079 vs 0.3%) but not Twitter (0.19%, 1139/587,133 vs 0.25%). Mean scheduled LDCT exam volumes per week before, during, and after the digital awareness campaigns were 17.4 (SD 7.5), 20.4 (SD 5.4), and 26.2 (SD 6.4), respectively, with the difference between the mean number of scheduled exams after the digital awareness campaigns and the number of exams scheduled before and after the digital awareness campaigns being statistically significant (P<.001). CONCLUSIONS: Implementation of the LCS digital awareness campaigns was associated with increased visits to institutional educational Web pages and scheduled LDCT exams. Digital platforms are an important tool to enhance health promotion activities and engagement with patients and providers.