Can you trust health advice on social media? What a doctor says
Can you trust health advice on social media? What a doctor says
https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/09/health/social-media-health-information-ai-wellness
Publish Date: 2026-07-09 09:00:00
Source Domain: www.cnn.com
Not sure what type of bug bit you or what caused that rash? Many Americans hashtag their questions and turn to social media for health information, whether they are looking up symptoms, researching a diagnosis or learning about a treatment.
More than 1 in 5 adults in the United States who use social media reported making health decisions based on information they encountered there, according to a study published June 30 in the journal JAMA.
How should people use social media to learn about their health? What are the biggest pitfalls? And how should people think about artificial intelligence, which is increasingly shaping the information they see online?
To help answer these questions, I spoke with CNN wellness expert Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and clinical associate professor at George Washington University. She previously served as Baltimore’s health commissioner.
CNN: What did we learn about Americans using social media for health information in this new study?
Dr. Leana Wen: The study found that social media has become a major source of health information. Nearly 88% of adults reported using social media in the previous year. Among those users, almost 85% said they had shared general or personal health information, and about 70% participated in online health communities. Perhaps the most notable finding was that more than 1 in 5 social media users — about 47 million Americans —reported making health decisions based on information they saw on social media.
At the same time, nearly 78% of users said they believed health information on social media was false or misleading. The researchers also found that older adults and Hispanic users were more likely to report making health decisions based on social media.
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