Your Feed Isn’t Neutral: How Biases Influence Women’s Health Information Online
Author: Jade Helene Dufour, MSc & MA, University of Ottawa | Editors: Tashi Stampp and Romina Garcia de leon (blog coordinators)
Published: June 12th, 2026
In today’s fast-moving digital world, do people turn to social media for health and mental health information? If so, what’s driving that shift?
Research supports that searching for health and mental health information online has become most people’s first line of action when they have questions. Part of this shift is motivated by the convenience, availability, affordability, and ease of access of the internet. The other reason for this shift is the challenge of accessing more formal information sources like psychoeducation via mental health professionals, or journal articles about symptoms or treatments. Some people may find diagnostic language complex to interpret or intimidating, which could deter them from looking further into official information sources. Others may lack the capability to use correct terminology to properly identify and express their needs. Regardless of its accuracy, the short, concise, and digestible educational content on social media has been able to fill this gap.
What do social scientists understand about how people can be influenced to believe this information?
Social media constantly exposes people to content about physical and mental health, often when they are not actively seeking it out. Over time, in these repeated accidental information encounters users begin to build an understanding of a specific topic. As a user engages more with certain content, the algorithm will push similar videos to this user, creating a platform of specific information, known as an “echo-chamber”. The repeat exposure to this content will then strengthen a user’s belief in the information’s accuracy and may lead the user to then share this information with their social circle. This cycle is referred to as the Misinformation Belief and Dissemination Model.
Content creators often use credibility cues in their videos like asserting their expertise through their titles (i.e., Doctor, Psychotherapist, ect), or their clothes (i.e., wearing a lab coat or scrubs). Also, the use of ‘you’ language invites the viewer to identify with the content. The more content has likes, views, and comments, which indicate an overall positive response from the wider audience, the more viewers are likely to approve the content as well. A recent example of this was featured in an earlier Behind The Science blog from WRHC, which addressed common misconceptions about Tylenol use during pregnancy that arose after President Trump’s comments on the topic went viral.
When it comes to women’s health content, is there tension between making information accessible and reinforcing simplified or polarized narratives?
My experience with health-related social media research tells me that there is definitely tension between making information accessible and reinforcing narratives when it comes to online content, especially short-form content like Instagram reels, YouTube shorts, or TikTok videos. It can be difficult to communicate complex health information in a 30-second video, while also keeping it understandable and engaging for the average person. For this reason, content creators may rely on longstanding narratives as a way to meet their audience halfway. It is also a way of ensuring that a larger audience benefits from accessing this information. This is part of the reason why much of the content online falls into heteronormative and cisgendered tropes and fails to address audiences that exist outside these binaries (e.g., members of the 2SLGBTQI+ community like homosexual people, non-binary folks, transgender people, ect.). This may also help explain why so many creators rely on credibility cues, like those I described in the previous section.
If our feeds aren’t neutral, what should we be “scrolling out for”, and how can we avoid being misled by online content discussing women’s health and mental health information?
When scrolling social media, it’s important to keep in mind that technology is not neutral and neither is your algorithm. Technology is designed around a certain set of values and a specific perspective of the world. These values impact both the creators and users of social media platforms. As mentioned above, the short-form nature of content on your feed relies on certain assumptions to achieve its informative goals. These same assumptions are often integral to the design and training of algorithms. For an algorithm to recommend “women’s health” content, it first has to decide what counts as “woman” and what counts as “health”. The definitions algorithms use are determined by the people responsible for the technology. Today, many social media algorithms are AI-driven, which can further reinforce predetermined ideas of “woman” and “health”. It is crucial to think about both the motivations behind the design and the messages you are engaging with.
How does your research help us understand the ways people encounter health information online, and have you seen specific social media platforms play a unique role in shaping that experience?
I’ve had the opportunity to work on research involving both X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok. Through working with these platforms, it is clear that there are audiences actively engaging with health and mental health information on social media. My research on X found that health and mental health information is often shared in a mostly unconscious effort to build community, either between individual users or between users and organizations providing resources. The results of my TikTok project suggested that the platform is more geared towards information sharing from a professional or individual to an audience, representing a more unidirectional relationship than what is typically seen on X.
Outside of my work, studies support that younger women in caregiver roles, who are employed, have completed higher education, have higher incomes, and own smartphones are among those most likely to encounter online health and mental health content. As social media continues to shape how people learn about health, I hope to explore more closely how these experiences differ across gender identities and communities.
