Social media activism and women’s health: Endometriosis awareness and support

Moses U. Okocha (Ph.D. student) and colleagues’ work “Social media activism and women's health: Endometriosis awareness and support,”Digital Health, January 21, 2025. doi: 10.1177/20552076251314905

Abstract: This study examines how social media users utilized Instagram to raise awareness of and mobilize activism around endometriosis by analyzing prominent topics, word associations, and feminism themes in endometriosis-tagged posts on Instagram. Incorporating a mixed-method approach of combining computational analyses (topic modeling and word association) and human coding (qualitative thematic analysis) of Instagram posts on endometriosis, the study results show that while Instagram users discussed a variety of issues related to the disease on the social media platform, these issues tend to focus on four topic areas: (i) living with endometriosis, (ii) pregnancy and endometriosis, (iii) awareness and empowerment, and (iv) women's health and wellbeing. In addition, social media users widely incorporated three feminism themes: (i) bringing attention to invisible disability, (ii) solidarity and support among women, and (iii) advocacy and activism around women's health.