ArticleFrontiers in public health2022
The impact of online health community engagement on lifestyle changes: A serially mediated model.
Article in Frontiers in public health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 9 citations in OpenAlex.
- Stage-Based Model of User Engagement Patterns in an Online Health Community for Cardiovascular Disease Management: Qualitative Interview Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Development of an online, asynchronous community engagement course for Master of Public Health students: Theoretical and practical considerations.Pedagogy in health promotion · 2025Article
- Internet use for health information, health service utilization, and quality of care in the U.S.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Relationship between growth mindset and self-rated health in Chinese college teachers: sequential mediating effect of health self-efficacy and physical exercise.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Due to reduced physical labor and increased food availability, making healthy lifestyle changes is becoming increasingly challenging. Prior studies have suggested that strong ties (such as friends or family members) help promote positive lifestyle behavior changes while weak ties like online friends hardly make a difference in activating healthy lifestyle changes. More recent studies have found evidence of positive lifestyle changes brought about by health APPs. Yet, the process through which online health community (OHC) engagement is related to healthy lifestyle changes has not been fully explored. Methods: Drawing on social network theory and the self-efficacy literature, we argued that the information and emotional support which users obtained from OHCs is positively associated with health self-efficacy, which in turn is positively associated with lifestyle changes. Then we constructed a serially mediated model between OHC engagement and healthy lifestyle changes and collected 320 valid questionnaires through an online survey. We tested the model by applying structural equation modeling Results: This study demonstrated that the informational and emotional support that users receive from OHC engagement positively affects healthy lifestyle changes Conclusions: Our findings help explain how OHC users make healthy lifestyle changes by utilizing the informational and emotional support to develop health self-efficacy. The results also highlight the value of informational and emotional support as important resources which users acquire from OHC engagement. Thus, we suggest that OHC users utilize the informational and emotional support to enhance health self-efficacy and facilitate healthy lifestyle changes. Future research could explore the dynamic process through which OHC engagement influences lifestyle changes by designing longitudinal research and addressing the limitations of the present study.
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