Video-Based Health Promotion for Rural and Underserved Populations: A Narrative Review With Implications for Rural Alabama

Rural populations in the United States experience persistent health disparities associated with limited healthcare access, socioeconomic constraints, transportation barriers, healthcare workforce shortages, and reduced availability of health education resources.These challenges are particularly relevant in rural Alabama, where a substantial proportion of the population resides in rural communities and access to healthcare services varies considerably across geographic regions.Digital health promotion media, particularly video-based interventions, represent a potentially scalable and cost-efficient approach to supplementing traditional health education.This narrative review examines the effectiveness and potential applications of health promotion videos in improving health literacy, health behaviors, preventive healthcare utilization, and health-related outcomes among rural and underserved populations, with particular emphasis on applicability to rural Alabama.The reviewed literature includes randomized controlled trials, systematic reviews, qualitative studies, and epidemiologic sources examining video-based health education delivered through social media, online platforms, e-learning programs, and physical media.Overall, the literature suggests that video-based health education can improve health knowledge and literacy and may support medication adherence, preventive screening, healthy lifestyle practices, and chronic disease self-management.However, effects on sustained behavior change are less consistent, and outcomes vary according to intervention design, population characteristics, delivery platform, and duration of follow-up.Barriers including digital access, health literacy, misinformation, and differences in technology use must also be considered.Health promotion videos therefore represent a promising complementary strategy for addressing health education barriers in rural and underserved populations, although additional research is needed to determine how best to implement and evaluate these interventions in rural U.S. communities.