title: Online social networking and US poison control centers: Facebook as a means of information distribution.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Online social networking services such as Facebook provide a novel medium for the dissemination of public health information by poison control centers in the United States. We performed a cross-sectional study of poison control center Facebook pages to describe and assess the use of this medium.
  
  
  METHODS
  Facebook pages associated with poison control centers were identified during a continuous two-week period from December 24, 2012 to January 7, 2013. Data were extracted from each page, including affiliated poison control center; page duration, measured in years since registration; number of subscribers; number of postings by general toxicological category; and measures of user-generated activity including "likes", "shares", and comments per posting.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Among the 56 US poison control centers, 39 Facebook pages were identified, of which 29 were currently active. The total number of active pages has increased by 140% from 2009 to 2013 (average of 25% per year). The total number of all subscribers to active pages was 11,211, ranging from 40 to 2,456 (mean 387, SD 523), equal to 0.006% of all Facebook users in the United States. The number of subscribers per page was associated with page duration, number of postings, and type of postings. The types of toxicological postings were public education (45%), self-promotion (28%), childhood safety (12%), drugs of abuse (8%), environmental poisonings (6%), and general overdoses (1%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Slightly over half of all poison control centers in the United States are supplementing their outreach and education efforts through Facebook. In general, the more active the poison control center on Facebook, the more page followers and follower engagement gained.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, University of California , San Francisco, San Francisco, CA , USA.
authors.forename: Kathy
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Vo
authors.forename: Craig
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Smollin
mesh_terms: D022126:Access to Information; D054626:Consumer Health Information; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004346:Drug Information Services; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D057226:Information Seeking Behavior; D011039:Poison Control Centers; D061108:Social Media; D060756:Social Networking; D014481:United States
keywords: Facebook; Poison control centers; Social media; Social networking