Pfizer's U.S. Primary Care Marketing team has launched The Pfizer Health Channel on YouTube to engage consumers through online video.

Pfizer is using the Health Channel to provide human health video content on wellness, prevention and management of specific disease areas. The channel demonstrates the company's mission to support a culture of innovation and will serve as a repository for consumer-friendly short videos about health care conditions that are manageable with Pfizer medicines.

The channel recently launched with videos on fibromyalgia, arthritis and hemophilia. Videos on more health concerns, including smoking cessation and menopause, and videos from other business units within the company, will be added in the coming months.

"People are increasingly using YouTube the way they have been using Google, and it is now the second-largest search engine on the Web," said Paul Ewing, Senior Director/Group Leader, Consumer Center of Expertise in U.S. Primary Care. "Video can provide an emotional engagement that text alone often cannot, and these are powerful tools to help improve consumers' understanding of health topics.

"Also, research shows us that 93 percent of viewers take action — including talking to their physicians — after watching a health video. Our presence on YouTube provides us with an important way to reach patients earlier in their journeys as they seek to learn about their health concerns."

One of the channel's goals is to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of medical conditions so that patients and caregivers can initiate informed conversations with their health care providers, Ewing said. Each video will also have pop-up links to Pfizer-created unbranded websites when certain content is being discussed. For example, those interested in learning more about arthritis can click on a link for Arthritis.com, one of Pfizer's unbranded websites, while they are watching the video.

"The Web is so free and open, and contains so many different types of health-related information from so many sources, that there's now a huge need for trusted, credible content," said Ewing. "The Pfizer Health Channel meets this need by connecting people to valuable information and tools built on Pfizer's extensive knowledge and medical expertise."

Visitors can subscribe to the channel and receive email alerts for newly posted videos.

The Pfizer Health Channel joins the Pfizer News Channel and FibroCenter to expand Pfizer's presence on YouTube.