Electronic Health Literacy Content Is Scarce and Underperforming on TikTok: An Exploratory Analysis

Most TikTok users have low electronic health (eHealth) literacy. Yet, evidence on the availability, content, and engagement metrics of TikTok videos on eHealth literacy is scanty. This study analyzes the content and engagement metrics of recent TikTok videos on health literacy to identify the unmet eHealth literacy needs of TikTok users. A convergent mixed-methods study was conducted. The hashtag #eHealthliteracy was searched for videos published between January 2025 and February 2026. Engagement and content data were retrieved and analyzed statistically and thematically, respectively. Sixty of the 69 retrieved TikTok videos were shorter than 288 s. Favorite:like ratio was the only high engagement ratio at 15%; the rest were less than 4%. Only four of the 69 videos were generated using artificial intelligence, and their engagement metrics were the highest. Video lengths were negatively associated with all engagement metrics (β = −0.004 to −0.008, p < 0.001). Favorites, shares, and likes were significantly higher for educational videos compared to promotional videos (p = 0.0071, 0.0252, and 0.0413), with medium effect sizes of ε2 = 0.1072, 0.0743, and 0.0617, respectively. Only six of the 69 videos were directly on eHealth literacy; the rest were on health literacy. The increasing availability of health information is not accompanied by eHealth literacy on TikTok. Future eHealth literacy videos should be short, institutional, AI-optimized, and embedded with health topics for better reach and engagement.