Information quality of videos related to esophageal cancer on tiktok, kwai, and bilibili: a cross-sectional study
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Esophageal cancer typically lacks specific early symptoms, leading to late-stage diagnosis and poor prognosis, with an overall low 5-year survival rate. However, early detection and timely intervention can significantly improve the 5-year survival rate, underscoring the importance of prevention, screening, and early intervention. Short video platforms are increasingly utilized for health communication, offering opportunities to disseminate medical knowledge. However, the quality and reliability of health-related content, particularly for diseases like esophageal cancer, remain under explored. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to systematically evaluate the quality, reliability, completeness, and engagement of esophageal cancer-related videos on three popular short video platform: Bilibili, TikTok, and Kwai, to identify platform-specific strengths and limitations in disseminating health information. METHODS: A total of 311 esophageal cancer-related videos were analyzed. Video assessment was assessed using 4 standardized scoring framework including General Quality Scores (GQS) for general quality, the DISCERN for reliability, Completeness Score (CS) for comprehensive information, Engagement Score (ES) for understandability and entertainment value of the video. Video features (source, category, content), user's behavior (likes, shares, comments) were also collected. Cross-platform comparisons were conducted to identify disparities in content quality and user interaction. RESULTS: This study analyzed 311 esophageal cancer-related videos on Bilibili, TikTok, and Kwai. Video quality varied significantly across platforms, with Bilibili showing the highest DISCERN (5.46), GQS (2.97) and CS (3.64), while TikTok videos achieved the highest ES (2.88) and engagement metrics (e.g., likes and collections, p < 0.001). Kwai videos had the lowest scores across all measures. Content focused primarily on "symptoms" and "treatment," with Bilibili offering more comprehensive coverage. Correlation analysis revealed a positive association between video quality and engagement on Bilibili but a negative association on TikTok (e.g., GQS and likes, r=-0.251, P = 0.009). CONCLUSIONS: The quality of esophageal cancer-related videos across Bilibili, TikTok, and Kwai is suboptimal, with notable quality disparities among the platforms. Users on platforms other than Bilibili show limited ability to identify or prefer higher-quality content. This study underscores the potential of short-video platforms for esophageal cancer public health education, but highlights the need for improvements in content quality, ethical standards, and platform governance to address health equity concerns.
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Studies of health-related videos on social media for kidney stones, esophageal cancer, knee osteoarthritis, and myopia prevention have consistently found overall information quality suboptimal.
“Studies examining content related to kidney stones14, esophageal cancer15, knee osteoarthritis16, and myopia prevention17 have consistently found that the overall information quality is suboptimal”
Videos with fewer than 100 cumulative views were excluded as long-tail content with negligible reach and no meaningful public health exposure, consistent with over 80% of published social media health content analyses prioritizing high-visibility content.
“videos with fewer than 100 cumulative views at the time of data extraction, a pre-specified threshold to exclude long-tail content with negligible reach and no meaningful public health exposure”
From Quality, reliability, and treatment misinformation risk of epilepsy content on Chinese short-video platforms TikTok (Douyin) and Bilibili: a cross-sectional analysis (2026) · cites this paper as [15]
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“…over 80% of published social media health content analyses that uniformly prioritize high-visibility content with meaningful population exposure 15,16 ; and videos in languages other than Mandarin Chinese, a criterion applied to ensure consistency in the content assessed and alignment with the…”
- Authors
- Zhu, W., He, B., Wang, X., Du, Y., Young, K., & Jiang, S.
- Affiliations
- Zhejiang Hospital (CN)
- Zhejiang Chinese Medical University (CN)
- California State University, Northridge (US)
- Corresponding author
- Jiang, Shuhan
- Venue
- BMC Public Health
- Published
- 2025-07-02
- Volume
- 25
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 2245-2245
- ISSN
- 1471-2458 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC12220660
- OpenAlex
- W4411894493
- Cited by
- 74
- References
- 30
- Citations by year
- 2026: 66 · 2025: 8
- FWCI
- 82.75
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- BMC Public Health (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Humanities and Social Sciences Youth Foundation, Ministry of Education (23YJCZH090)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Social Media in Health Education
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Literacy and Information Accessibility
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Keywords
- esophageal cancer, short video platforms, health information quality, DISCERN, Bilibili, TikTok, Kwai, user engagement, health communication, online health content, early detection, public health education, cross-platform comparison, video reliability, Chinese social media, user-generated health content
- MeSH terms
- Cross-Sectional Studies, Esophageal Neoplasms, Humans, Video Recording, Reproducibility of Results, Information Dissemination
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