Dental Self-confidence in Digital Health Marketing Systems: Adolescent Well-being and Social Media Use

Health marketing research has paid limited attention to how everyday digital platforms function as informal health marketing systems that shape adolescents’ perceptions of appearance, self-worth, and treatment value. Positioning social media platforms as marketplace-mediated environments that produce health-related norms and consumer vulnerability, this study examines dental self-confidence (DSC) as a form of health-related market value among adolescents. Using data from 502 parent-child dyads in New Zealand and applying multivariate analysis and PLS-SEM, the findings show that lower dental self-confidence is associated with greater social and psychological impact (PI), with social impact operating as a key pathway. Active social media use was associated with a weaker protective DSC-PI association. This study extends health marketing theory by (a) conceptualizing dental appearance as a form of health-related market value, (b) positioning everyday digital platforms as informal health marketing systems, and (c) extending consumer vulnerability frameworks to adolescent health consumers navigating marketing-mediated appearance norms.