Title: Social Media Approach to Understanding Community Strengths and Needs During COVID-19 Pandemic
Name: Nicole Martin
Primary Presenters: Nicole Martin
College of Nursing
Undergraduate
Faculty Sponsor(s): Jeana Holt

COVID-19 has profoundly impacted populations’ mental and physical health. People that were under-resourced before the pandemic are even more vulnerable. COVID-19-related stressors, impacts, and sequelae affect ethnic and racial minorities more than ethnic and racial majority groups. The purpose of this project was to understand individual and community strengths, challenges, and needs in Milwaukee, WI, during the COVID-19 pandemic using 20 determinants of health and health-related concepts within the MyStrengthsMyHealth™ (MSMH™) web-based application. The MSMH™ whole-person strength-based consumer-facing application leverages the Omaha System’s rigor, a standardized multidisciplinary taxonomy, and an ontology to provide structure and organization to the data. The Omaha System is a comprehensive yet concise relational framework that connects problem-based concepts, interventions, and outcomes relevant to health and healthcare. We employed social media and social networking strategies to disseminate the opportunity to participate in the study. Between October 2020 and March 2021, 52 social media outreach messages were sent, including Facebook 12, Instagram 6, Twitter 7, direct email messages 24, and WhatsApp 3. A total of 14 participants completed the survey. Participants identified their top 5 Strengths as no concerns of substance abuse, Intimate partner violence, or infections; Personal Care; and Breathing. Top 5 Challenges were: Hard to get food to cook or eat, Hard to exercise the right amount, Limited social time, Tired, and Wake up a lot at night. Their top 5 Needs were: Income, Emotions, Nutrition, Exercising, and Sleeping. On average participants had 14.9 (± 3.0) Strengths; 14.1 (± 7.6) Challenges; and 5.5 (± 3.6) Needs. This research contributes to existing literature demonstrating that communities are not receiving essential supplies during times of self-quarantine and social distancing. This research builds on previous work in which we adopted a whole-person health approach, focusing on individual and community resilience and challenges and needs.