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Top1. Introduction
Social media, which provides online tools or platforms that allow people to freely and easily share their thoughts, experiences, perspectives, and knowledge (Kwahk & Park, 2016), has revolutionized the way people communicate (Zou et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2017). The rapid development of telecommunication technology (e.g. 5G) and enhanced accessibility to social networks have prompted an increasing number of individuals to turn to social media application in order to obtain various types of information. A typical example of such information is medical and health information (Deng et al., 2015). Health information mainly consists of personal health awareness, treatment options, and personal success experiences (Johnston et al., 2013). To cope with illness and make well-informed decisions, people require information regarding the illness, associated therapeutic options, and other health matters (Varshney, 2014; Bolle et al., 2015). Previous studies focused on health information acquisition through the Internet and new media, as well as the related improvement of healthy living habits (Verhoef et al., 2014; Grajales et al., 2014; Deng & Liu, 2017). In the era of mobile Internet, social media has become one of the most important health information exchange channels and platforms. With the help of social media, users can share health information or their own health-related experiences (Li et al., 2018). Social media platforms highlight a more customer-oriented experience and enables the sharing of health information (Kamel Boulos & Wheeler, 2007). Social media use positively impacts on health behaviors (Laranjo et al., 2014)
As to China, Webchat is one of the most popular social media, which provides innovative tools of communicating as text messaging, one-to-many messaging, photo/video sharing, and so on. WeChat has continually enriched and optimized its applications (Gan, 2017). For instance, WeChat Moments provide a platform for sharing information and pictures with captions (Zhang et al., 2017; Shao & Pan, 2019). WeChat Group service provides a virtual interactive community in which users can share different information in different groups based on the intimacy of the relationships and relevance of the topic (Pi et al.,2013). Official Public Account is a service WeChat provides for certified commercial/official/social entities or certified persons to help them offer one-to-many messaging or information (Ma et al., 2018). WeChat users are familiar with searching for useful information in Official Public Account and share the ones they find useful in their WeChat Moments. In conclusion, the growing popularity of interactive social platforms (e.g. WeChat) presents a variety of challenges concerning public health information acquisition and sharing. Based on its features, a variety of health-related information may be found on WeChat. In the meantime, WeChat plays an important role in health information expression among Chinese people.