Hookah messages on social media can promote its use

Messages with hashtags, such as #hookah or #shisha on social media platforms, can describe its use in an extremely positive manner despite its serious risks for health, new study suggests

The findings, published in the journal Health Education and Behavior, suggest that the representation and promotion of narghile on social media can standardize its use and pose public health problems.

A team of researchers from Florida International University, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Miami, the Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies and the University of Pittsburgh selected 279 positions among 11,517 messages tagged narghile or shisha over a four day period.
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They found that 99.6% indicated positive feelings towards the use of the hookah and that only one position (0.4%) mentioned its negative effects on health.
"A growing body of evidence suggests that smoking hookah can lead to nicotine addiction and many other known smoking-related diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and respiratory diseases," according to the researchers.

identify hookah related topics on Instagram and demonstrate the interest of using the data from this social platform to complement and expand our understanding of health behaviors, "add the researchers.

The researchers also found that 10% of all messages used the hashtag #HookahAddiction reporting that nicotine addiction is not perceived as a health risk that discourages users potential, but that it is rather called ironically or as a badge of honor

. Policy makers and others should explore approaches to reducing the number of promotional posts, for example by creating campaigns to counter positive market themes.

"These findings may inform the design of future tobacco control media campaigns aimed at countering the standardization of hookah use on social media," noted the researchers.

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