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# Understanding Drug Risks and Benefits in Tweets
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/understanding-drug-risks-and-benefits-in-tweets/
- Published: 2022-08-09T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T17:55:04.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: FDA Policy/General, #legacy-id-D5152476

FDA and Fors Marsh Group researchers say they have examined the tradeoffs for consumer understanding of drug risks and benefits when drugs are promoted in character-space-limited (CSL) communications such as tweets. “CSL communications present a challenge for maintaining fair balance between risks and benefits in direct-to-consumer prescription drug promotion,” the researchers write in an open-source *Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy* [article](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1551741122002637?ref=fdaweb.com).

The objectives of the study were to examine the effects in four studies of **(1)** including substantive risk information in CSL communications versus only providing a link to risk information, and **(2)** including risks and benefits versus only risks in the linked landing page.

The researchers found that including the risk in the CSL communication increased the likelihood that participants would recognize the risk after the first viewing (three studies) and second viewing (four studies)

The researchers say their results may inform further development of regulatory policy. For instance, they say, the suggestion from the studies that including benefit information as well as risk information on a landing page does not detract from consumers’ understanding of risks may be relevant and important for regulators to consider when updating guidance. Second, drug companies and marketers may want to consider the results when developing and evaluating CSL-only campaigns. Finally, healthcare providers may want to take the findings into account when communicating risk information to patients and may consider providing direct search strategy guidance to patients when prescribing a new product.