Whetherstarting with an interesting quote, startling statistic or medical scenario, acompelling healthcare blog will grab the reader's attention. A recent studyusing real blog readers surveyed their evaluations of various blogs and theirintentions for preventative health actions. It found that reading a personalstory or a statistical blog caused a similar increase in intended action,regardless of the reader's perceived risk or belief about their susceptibilityto the disease.
Information
Thebest healthcare wellness blogs are informative, easily digestible andinteresting to read. They aren’t just written in medicalese but also includereal, measurable facts like statistics and powerful quotes that resonate withthe reader. For example, a blog by Mission Health opens with startlingstatistics about the 1918 flu that will leave readers thinking twice about notgetting their annual flu shot.
Astudy that surveyed real, self-described blog readers found that most took somepreventative action after reading a medical blog. The authors controlled forblog evaluations, health risk and beliefs of the participants, but leftopen-ended questions evaluating their intention to take action.
Theresearch tested 3 blog conditions: a personal narrative about a specificillness, a general cancer story and a third statistic condition (all written bythe same person). Results showed that all three blog types were rated asinformative and emotionally appealing, but only the personal narrativecondition led to an intention to take preventative action.
Inspiration
Althoughmany health and wellness blogs focus on a single topic, some offer a moreholistic approach. For example, the Elephant Journal views physical, medical, andmental health as interconnected and believes that each can influence theothers. The blog also uses language that the average American understandsrather than medicalese.
Astudy of bloggers found that reading disease-related blogs inspired readers totake a variety of preventative actions, including scheduling skin checks anddoctor appointments, conducting additional research, donating money, or takingsupplements. The results of a second study corroborate these findings and showthat the blog type influences health intentions, but not perceivedsusceptibility or severity of a disease.
Readersalso rated the excerpts of the blogs as easy to read, informative, interesting,and emotional. Thus, the different blog types had similar effects on healthintentions. The results suggest that content presentation may be key ininfluencing prevention-related behaviors, which could help physician offices,patient coordinators, and patient therapists recommend specific blog types totheir patients.
Social Networking
Patientsand their families rely on blogs to share information about treatment paths orto express feelings about illness. While previous research has shown thatwriting a blog can be therapeutic for the author, comparatively littleattention has been given to the impact of reading medical blogs on readers.
Wesurveyed real readers of medical blogs (n=99 university participants and n=167general-population online panelists) about their perceptions of the blogs theyread, as well as their intentions to take preventative health action. Theresults of both studies demonstrated that reading a medical blog influencedreaders’ plans to take future preventative actions, but this effect varied byblog type.
InStudy 1, participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 blog conditions: apersonal narrative, a statistical cancer blog, and a control condition with noblog excerpt. They rated the 3 blog types similarly for their ability to beeasy to read, understand, and relate to, and they also rated them asinformative, interesting, and emotionally stimulating. However, thestatistics-oriented blog was more effective at driving preventative healthintentions than the personal narrative blog. The portal to victory opens-Click here for https://allegiantpatriots.com/ Health and Wellness .
Education
Manyhealth blogs are filled with recipes, nutrition advice and tips, exercisetechniques and motivation to keep readers on track with their healthy livinggoals. They also educate readers on topics like new trends in healthy living orhow to prevent certain diseases.
Thebest healthcare wellness blogs are written by medical professionals and provideaccurate, relatable information. Providing this type of content can improveyour website’s ranking on search engines like Google and attract potentialpatients.
