COVID-19–Related Health Inequalities Induced by the Use of Social Media: Systematic Review

BACKGROUND: COVID-19–related health inequalities were reported in some studies, showing the failure in public health and communication. Studies investigating the contexts and causes of these inequalities pointed to the contribution of communication inequality or poor health literacy and information access to engagement with health care services. However, no study exclusively dealt with health inequalities induced by the use of social media during COVID-19. OBJECTIVE: This review aimed to identify and summarize COVID-19–related health inequalities induced by the use of social media and the associated contributing factors and to characterize the relationship between the use of social media and health disparities during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: A systematic review was conducted on this topic in light of the protocol of the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) 2020 statement. Keyword searches were performed to collect papers relevant to this topic in multiple databases: PubMed (which includes MEDLINE [Ovid] and other subdatabases), ProQuest (which includes APA PsycINFO, Biological Science Collection, and others), ACM Digital Library, and Web of Science, without any year restriction. Of the 670 retrieved publications, 10 were initially selected based on the predefined selection criteria. These 10 articles were then subjected to quality analysis before being analyzed in the final synthesis and discussion. RESULTS: Of the 10 articles, 1 was further removed for not meeting the quality assessment criteria. Finally, 9 articles were found to be eligible and selected for this review. We derived the characteristics of these studies in terms of publication years, journals, study locations, locations of study participants, study design, sample size, participant characteristics, and potential risk of bias, and the main results of these studies in terms of the types of social media, social media use–induced health inequalities, associated factors, and proposed resolutions. On the basis of the thematic synthesis of these extracted data, we derived 4 analytic themes, namely health information inaccessibility–induced health inequalities and proposed resolutions, misinformation-induced health inequalities and proposed resolutions, disproportionate attention to COVID-19 information and proposed resolutions, and higher odds of social media–induced psychological distress and proposed resolutions. CONCLUSIONS: This paper was the first systematic review on this topic. Our findings highlighted the great value of studying the COVID-19–related health knowledge gap, the digital technology–induced unequal distribution of health information, and the resulting health inequalities, thereby providing empirical evidence for understanding the relationship between social media use and health inequalities in the context of COVID-19 and suggesting practical solutions to such disparities. Researchers, social media, health practitioners, and policy makers can draw on these findings to promote health equality while minimizing social media use–induced health inequalities.