While it is never going to be confused with JAMA® or the AMA Ed Hub™, the short-video social media platform TikTok might have more credibility as a purveyor of health information than one might expect.
Research presented during the 2025 AMA Interim Meeting Poster Showcase found that accurate health information content on TikTok achieved greater visibility and engagement than videos that contained inaccurate information.
“So many young people, including myself, use TikTok as one of their main sources of information today,” said AMA member Pranav Jayakumar, a second-year Ohio medical student who co-wrote the poster. He noted that “a large percentage of women between the ages of 18 and 29 use TikTok for information.”
With inaccurate information on various topics such as vaccination “becoming more mainstream,” he said, “we thought it would be valuable to examine how TikTok either spreads or counters these narratives.”
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What health information gets traction
Jayakumar and his research colleagues analyzed TikTok metrics—including views, likes and comments—for five topics that are frequent arenas for inaccurate medical information: raw milk safety, seed-oil safety, measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccines and autism, Tylenol use and autism, and COVID-19 vaccine deaths.
Jayakumar and his team searched each topic on TikTok, selected the top 40 relevant videos, and categorized them by agreement with the topic—advocating incorrect information such as wrongly saying that the COVID-19 vaccine increased deaths—or disagreement with a false premise. Videos that did not clearly agree or disagree with the premise were considered neutral and excluded from the sample.
Of the 176 videos that met the inclusion criteria, those that contained accurate health information had an average of 309,913, views, 26,534 likes and 666 comments. Videos that contained inaccurate information averaged 126,866 views, 7,703, likes and 435 comments.
There is certainly no shortage of inaccurate health information on TikTok, Jayakumar noted. “But in the topics we covered, the top videos were far more likely to rebut” inaccurate information than they were to contain it.
To reduce algorithm bias, a new TikTok account was used for searches, but Jayakumar acknowledged that in real life, the algorithm feeds users similar content. The way algorithms function can push users into echo chambers of inaccurate information or reinforce existing beliefs.
Nevertheless, Jayakumar suggested, the study’s findings could be useful. TikTok’s visual and short-form nature may facilitate rapid communication of accurate health messages in an engaging way.
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What it means for medical students
As a content consumer, Jayakumar has found that the medical influencer space on TikTok can be informative. He specifically cited information geared toward premeds about the process of getting into medical school as a successful use case he has had with the platform.
To date, Jayakumar’s TikTok usage has been almost exclusively as a content consumer. He does see opportunities.
Using TikTok “as a creator of health content is something I would be open to in the future,” he said. “Maybe as a physician making videos for patients or even as a med student passing information down.”
As far as the platform’s utility as a primary resource for health information, Jayakumar was less bullish.
“A lot of people would probably say this about their own use of TikTok, but I do feel confident in the way I use it. It's a big part of how I keep up with the daily news," he said. "It's a good way to introduce you to events or ideas you might not be familiar with. But just using TikTok alone, I don't think you can see one video alone and then decide this is a credible source of information unless the video show clear sources."
“When it comes to learning things in-depth, we’re talking about things like STEM or medical education, where you need in-depth information, using TikTok alone would be challenging.”
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