Leveraging Influencers to Reach and Engage Vulnerable Individuals With a Digital Health Intervention: Quasi-Experimental Field Study
This work provides the first evidence that recruitment via influencers yields high reach ratios, moving far beyond the reach of traditional social media platforms. Nonetheless, based on the data collected, the ability to leverage such platforms to recruit vulnerable individuals remains unclear. In addition, while engagement with the promoted interventions was initially high, the completion rate of the full breathing exercise was comparably low, indicating that the influencer promotion strategy cannot fully overcome the well-documented adherence barriers in digital health.
Authors
- Yanick Xavier Lukic (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2576-6569)
- Anja Yvonne Bischof (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9318-5408)
- Theresa Schachner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5505-8811)
- Marcia Nißen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6082-8825)
- Samira Harperink (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0583-8948)
- Tobias Kowatsch (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5939-4145)
- Florian von Wangenheim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3964-2353)
- Prabhakaran Santhanam (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9506-4888)
- Priyam Joshi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-0621-3936)
- Joseph Ollier (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8603-0793)
- Fabian Schneider (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2434-7087)
Institutions
- Georgia State University (US)
- ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences (CH)
- University of Zurich (CH)
- University of St.Gallen (CH)
- Bulacan State University (PH)
- ETH Zurich (CH)
- SpineWelding (Switzerland) (CH)
- University of Applied Sciences St. Gallen (CH)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of Medical Internet Research
- Published
- 2025-06-02
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.2196/67174
- Primary Topic
- Impact of Technology on Adolescents
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00