Social Media Health Information is Widely Distrusted, but Still Shapes Decisions
Most U.S. adults engage with health content on social media in some form, whether by sharing it or participating in online health communities, according to a new research letter published in JAMA reporting results from the 2024 Health Information National Trends Survey. Most users also said they don’t trust what they see there: 78% of users reported believing that health information on social media was false or misleading.
More recent KFF polling from June 2026 supports these findings, with about three in ten adults (31%) now using social media at least monthly for health information and advice. A majority (61%) say they are confident they are able to tell what’s true or false, but only about a third of social media users (36%) say they follow up with a doctor at least most of the time to check what they’ve seen.
The JAMA research letter goes further, though, examining whether people act based on what they see. More than one in five adults who use social media (21.6%) said they had made at least one health-related decision based on something they saw on these platforms. The letter’s authors note that these findings describe patterns of engagement rather than the accuracy of the content itself, with social media functioning as a widely used, if often distrusted, source of health information that still shapes behavior.
Why This Matters: The findings taken together show that social media content can still influence health decisions, regardless of how confident people feel in their own judgment or how skeptical they say they are. Although the underlying data in the JAMA letter is from 2024, KFF will continue to monitor how distrusted sources of health information may impact behavior, particularly as the AI and social media landscapes continue to evolve.
Misleading Sunscreen Content Is Rare on TikTok, But Outsized Engagement Keeps It Visible
A content analysis of 971 of the most-viewed TikTok videos using popular sunscreen-related hashtags, published last month in PLOS Digital Health, found the vast majority (86.8%) of sunscreen-related content promoted its use, commonly highlighting protection against skin damage, acne, aging, and cancer. A small share of videos (6.0%) included critique of sunscreen, and an even smaller fraction (1.6%) solely discouraged its use. While overall view counts did not differ significantly between content types, videos that only critiqued sunscreen received significantly higher engagement in likes, shares, and comments than promotional videos, suggesting that a small volume of content can still reach audiences disproportionately to its actual share of posts.
The study identified several specific claims among the small number of critical videos, including that sunscreen is toxic, contains carcinogens, disrupts hormones, or prevents the body from gaining the benefits of sun exposure, including vitamin D production. Multiple studies have found that regular sunscreen use does not cause vitamin D deficiency, and the chemical ingredients most often singled out in online criticism have no indication of being harmful to human health at the concentrations used in approved products.
Many of these claims have circulated online for several years, in some cases tracing back to a 2020 study finding that some chemical sunscreen ingredients are absorbed into the body at levels exceeding the FDA’s threshold for further safety testing. That finding on its own, though, does not indicate that an ingredient is unsafe. Some posts have also conflated past recalls of specific sunscreen products found to contain benzene, an unrelated and unapproved contaminant, with the safety of approved active ingredients generally. As a new sunscreen ingredient approved by the FDA last month begins appearing in U.S. products, KFF will monitor whether confusion about sunscreen ingredient safety continues to affect how the public perceives and uses sunscreen.
Why This Matters: The influence of misleading claims about sunscreen safety may lie less in their overall volume than in how strongly they resonate with the audiences who do encounter them. KFF polling has found that nearly four in ten (39%) of adults are “not too” or “not at all” confident in their ability to tell what is true or false in health information they see on social media. Such uncertainty may leave more room for a small volume of highly engaging false claims to carry influence beyond what their limited presence may suggest.
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