Why Mom Bloggers are Powerful Players in Healthcare Advocacy

by Katie Matlack

Women are the power users of social networking tools and usually make the health decisions for their families. So it makes sense that it’s women blogging–moms in particular–who are playing an important role bringing stories about important health issues to the world.

I spoke with Deb Levine on the topic. Deb’s one of the moms I feature in my article on six women to know doing important work to improve healthcare and the tools available in health. She was one of the first to use the web as a tool for social change related to accessing health information, as founder of award-winning sexual-health Q&A site Go Ask Alice, and she’s still at the forefront of the movement to mobilize social networks for good as the recent winner of an award from the White House for her team’s design of an app to prevent on-campus dating violence.

Levine observed that women who are mothers are writing about sensitive issues, noting that they “are the people who, in bringing health issues to the forefront, are pushing healthcare reform and access while also bringing attention to important issues like maternal mortality.”

Read the original article to learn about the women making an impact in this way. Then, think about the possibilities if more moms who blog used the opportunity to advocate for important health issues they and their families were confronting.

Katie Matlack joined Software Advice in 2011. She writes about health information technology, particularly electronic health record system options. She has a background in sustainable development and has lived in four different countries in the past five years. Katie graduated from Yale University with a degree in American Studies.