Is TikTok a Reliable Source for Health Advice? Experts Share New Warnings

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It’s billed as relatable content — ordinary people offering advice on common health dramas, beauty and lifestyle hacks and medical developments.

But experts are increasingly cautioning about the dangers of unqualified influencers offering health advice or warning people off certain medical devices and treatments.

For children and young women, there are fresh warnings to be alert to misinformation.

New research by The Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne has found two two-thirds of teens are getting health information from social media, with many trying trends they see online. The leading topics they follow are fitness, skincare and diet.

The National Child Health Poll surveyed more than 1,400 Australian parents and one of their children aged between 12 and 17 years old.

Almost half of the teenagers said what they see on social media later makes them wish their bodies were different.

Year 9 student Willow said social media can be a harmful place as it applies pressure for young people to fit certain societal standards of beauty and body image.

She said health and wellness treatments such as sun tanning were widely discussed among friends at school and on social media, making them hard to avoid.

“Recently I’ve seen (content) romanticising tan lines,” she told AAP.

“It’s probably not the best thing for young skin or those more prone to melanoma.”

Willow said she had seen peers trying trends such a switching to retinol in their skincare routines, which isn’t recommended for young people.

“They’re being presented with huge amount of content that’s often quite persuasive. It may be emotive and engaging and offers solutions or advice to common challenges that we know teenagers face,” she said.

“This really leaves them quite vulnerable to being misled.”

Paediatrician and director of the National Child Health Poll, Dr Anthea Rhodes, said it was important to teach children how to identify evidence-based health information.

“The teen years are a time of self-discovery and curiosity — for influencers and marketing giants, however, this can provide the potential for big business in a relatively vulnerable population,” she said.

Concerns about reproductive health content

Public health experts have raised concerns about some of the content related to reproductive health on social media.

In a recent study, La Trobe University researchers looked into the rise of contraceptive misinformation on TikTok, analysing 100 TikTok videos on contraceptive health between August and September 2023 with the hashtags #birthcontrol, #contraception, #thepill, #naturalbirthcontrol and #cycletracking.

The researchers acknowledge the study is constrained by limitations, including a potential for selection bias, the relatively small sample size, and the inclusion of English-language only videos.

Even so, during that period those videos had collectively gained 4.85 billion views and 14.6 million likes.

According to the study, published in the journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, just 10 per cent of the videos sampled were created by medical professionals.

The researchers found more than half — 53 per cent — of TikTok content creators clearly rejected hormonal birth control, while about a third — 34 per cent — expressed distrust in health professionals.

Megan Bugden, the report’s co-author and a lecturer in public health at LaTrobe, said a lot of the advice given on TikTok is based on personal experience and beliefs rather than medical advice or evidence.

Bugden said most of the influencers analysed explicitly endorsed natural birth control methods, methods known as ‘fertility awareness’.

But she said the videos failed to disclose any potential limitations, which can include motivation, partner cooperation and biological variabilities.

She said what’s worrying is that it will mislead a large proportion of young people by over-emphasising the reliability of the method — failing to discuss the potential risks of unplanned pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections.

Need for accurate, reliable content

She said there was a real opportunity for public health practitioners to join these platforms and disseminate accurate, reliable, non-judgmental content that’s easily accessible to a huge range of people.

“We need to be partnering with trusted online voices that have this huge reach with young people and ensure that they’re getting access to non-biased information that is informing their contraceptive beliefs and therefore then decision making.”

She added that while videos by health professionals gained on average more likes and followers, TikTok’s algorithms amplify influencers’ voices, giving them greater reach than medical experts.

Budgen urged people to seek credible contraceptive advice — that just because someone says they’re a doctor or wears a lab coat, it doesn’t mean they can be trusted.

“Always ask your medical practitioner as well. Go in and have a discussion around some of the ideas you’ve seen online and ask how credible they are and how reliable they are, and ask them for evidence. You can always ask your GP for the clinical guidelines relating to any sort of medical recommendation that they’re suggesting.”

TikTok declined to comment when contacted by SBS News.

— With additional reporting by the Australian Associated Press