TikTok teams up with WHO to promote professional mental health content

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TikTok and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have announced a collaboration to promote mental health education content including the work of an Oxford University professor.

The social media platform said the year-long collaboration seeks to promote reliable mental wellbeing content and fight misinformation through WHO’s Fides Network, a community of healthcare professionals who are also TikTok creators.

This network of creators from the UK, US, France, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil will create and promote evidence-based content on TikTok, spanning mental wellbeing and related topics.

TikTok is also making an approximately £2 million donation to support WHO’s global work in destigmatising mental health issues and creating an informed and supportive online community.

Dr Kirren Schnack is one of a number of healthcare professionals included in the programme who has been creating healthcare content on the app.

Dr Schnack, who makes TikToks focused on mental health, has over 20 years of experience and holds a Practitioner Doctorate (PsychD) in Clinical Psychology from the University of Oxford.

Topics covered by Dr Schnack on her TikTok include anxiety symptoms and loneliness, which she has shared with her 588,000 followers.

She told the PA news agency: “I’m so excited and pleased to be part of this project. I think for Tiktok and WHO to be able to bring such a large number of healthcare professional creators together to make mental health content is so empowering.

“It really excites me, because I feel like it demonstrates such a huge potential for Tiktok, as a social media app, to be a real force for positive change in public health, mental health across the world.

“In lots of corners of the world, people don’t have access to help or can’t get help and sometimes it is apps like TikTok where they get that information from, so it’s really exciting to be part of something like this.”

Dr Schnack said there will be “lots of different kinds of campaigns” under the partnership, which will look at topics like loneliness, depression, and suicide.

Asked about social media’s impact on mental health, she said: “I do think that (social media) does benefit people. I think sometimes it is a mental health problem in itself if you are not able to regulate your use or you’re misusing.

“I think if the use of the app becomes a problem, or people are using it too much and it’s affecting that mental health, I see that as a mental health problem in itself that we could address by using the platform as well.”

Dr Schnack is also an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society (AFBPsS), a title given as recognition of several years of experience and contribution to the field of Clinical Psychology.

Dr Jeremy Farrar, Chief Scientist at WHO, said: “This collaboration can prove to be an inflection point in how platforms can be more socially responsible.

“By working with TikTok, we are helping people access credible information and engage in scientific discourse that cumulatively helps shape a healthier future.”

Global head of trust and safety outreach and partnerships at TikTok Valiant Richey said: “Millions of people come to TikTok everyday to share and find community in all areas of their life, including their wellbeing, and we strive to ensure they can find reliable information on this important topic.

“That’s why today we are delighted to be partnering with the World Health Organisation’s Fides network of healthcare content creators, to further strengthen this commitment by bringing engaging and authoritative mental wellbeing content to our community.”