Giving Compass' Take:

• Úsala Bien is a PSI network member that utilizes social media to understand and communicate with young people in Central America and the Caribbean about contraception. 

• The team designed software called Social Listening that studies keywords and phrases on social media channels to understand and improve communication with young individuals. This technology helps youth to gain better access to services and helps PSI to comprehend their basic health needs. 

• Read about other projects of PSI that are using a youth-centered approach to healthcare.

Under the tongue-in-cheek name Úsala Bien (Use it Well), PSI’s Central American network member, PASMO (Pan American Social Marketing Organization) is using popular social media channels like Instagram and Facebook to help increase access to contraception for youth across Central America and the Caribbean. Úsala Bien provides online sexual education in fun and creative ways, as a part of the Youth 3.0 program strategy to help reduce the staggeringly high rate of teen pregnancy in the region. These digital platforms help connect youth to peer outreach workers who provide online contraceptive counseling and referrals to youth-friendly healthcare service providers.

One of the most innovative assets in PASMO’s arsenal of digital tools is Social Listening, a software designed to identify keywords and phrases across user content posted on online channels such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.  The data is mined and centralized into a dashboard that provides real-time access to public conversations happening in the digital sphere.

From January 1st through June 30th, 2019, Social Listening identified 5.9 thousand online conversations with 74.6 million potential impressions in the region, all occurring around topics related to contraception, including pregnancy prevention, birth control methods, and the morning-after pill. These conversations, a combination of posts, videos and images shared publicly by users, enable the Social Media team at PASMO to home in on key insights that help drive the program’s digital strategy, inspire content creation, and even impact their advertising campaign.

Leveraging Social Listening and identifying innovative ways to apply it to improve access to information and services is a successful methodology to bring healthcare closer to youth. It helps support consumer powered healthcare by driving decision-making based on user needs and desires- and it certainly pays off.

Read the full article about listening to youth for better healthcare by Andrea Novella at PSI.