Dental Self-confidence in Digital Health Marketing Systems: Adolescent Well-being and Social Media Use
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Ibrahim, Khaled
McNeill, Lisa S
Mei, Li
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Informa UK Limited
Abstract
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.
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1505 Marketing, 3506 Marketing, Adolescent psychosocial well-being, esthetic concern, dental self-confidence, psychological impact, social impact, social media use
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Health Marketing Quarterly, ISSN: 0735-9683 (Print); 1545-0864 (Online), Informa UK Limited, 1-20. doi: 10.1080/07359683.2026.2687296
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© 2026 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as © 2026 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.