Judging

How Our Winners Are Chosen: Judging Process Overview

The Social Health Awards highlight impactful patient, caregiver, and healthcare professional (HCP) voices. Our judging process ensures a fair and thorough evaluation, bringing together diverse perspectives to select our winners.


Here’s how it works:

  • Step 1: Eligibility Check. Our Social Health Network team kicks things off, ensuring all entries meet the requirements for each category.
  • Step 2: Internal Review. The Health Union team reviews and scores entries using the evaluation criteria below, narrowing entries to the top 5 finalists per category.
  • Step 3: Expert Selection. A panel of external judges, including Patient Leadership Council members, Social Health Network peers, and healthcare industry representatives, reviews the finalists to select the winner.


What Our Judges Look For:

Throughout this comprehensive process, our judges pay close attention to several key elements:

  • "Fit" of the Award: Does the entry clearly align with the specific category description and eligibility requirements?
  • Use of Social Media: Has the entrant demonstrated creative use of social media to engage their health community? Note: Judges prioritize quality of engagement over total follower counts.
  • Information Sharing and Overall Engagement: Does the entrant consistently share accurate, helpful health information and actively engage with their community?

This process combines internal expertise with external insights to identify the most deserving voices. All judging decisions are final and not subject to appeal. Judges' scores and deliberations are confidential.


Industry and Patient Leader Judges

Industry and Health Leader judges play a critical role in the awards process. Health Union thanks all of the judges for sharing their time and expertise to evaluate the contributions of our Health Leaders. The support of the healthcare industry judges, who value patient perspectives, has a meaningful impact on people living with chronic and complex health conditions.

Conflict of Interest Policy: External judges must disclose any relationships with finalists and recuse themselves where a conflict of interest exists. All judging decisions are final and not subject to appeal.


Announcing The Winners:

All finalists and winners will be notified via email. Finalists will be announced on the Social Health Network community on July 21, 2026. Winners will be announced during live Zoom Social Health Awards webinar on August 19, 2026.

Please note: Any awards benefits are not transferable. To be considered a finalist and ultimately a winner, individuals must be 18 years of age or older. Healthcare professionals (HCPs) who receive prizes are responsible for ensuring compliance with all applicable laws, regulations, professional obligations and institutional policies governing the acceptance of gifts or compensation. Government-employed HCPs should verify eligibility with their compliance office before accepting prizes. Award winners with material connections to health industry companies must comply with FTC Endorsement Guidelines (16 CFR Part 255), including disclosure of such relationships when endorsing or promoting products or services.


Frequently Asked Questions for Judges

Health Union is deeply appreciative of our industry judges for their commitment to our Social Health Awards nominees. We recognize our judges through social media, email, and on the Awards website. If you wish to remain anonymous, please see below.

We respect your decision to remain anonymous and appreciate your support in judging. When you signed up as a judge, there was a check box option to remain anonymous. If you can’t recall what you selected, or wish to change your selection, please reach out to contact@socialhealthawards.com.

Sharing your involvement in the program publicly is completely optional, but highly encouraged! Once you’ve completed the judging process, you will receive a shareable graphic to utilize should you want to post about your participation on LinkedIn.

Due to the variety of platforms, condition areas, and journeys, it’s important to remember we aren’t comparing apples to apples. You should not be comparing the number of followers or any other statistic. Instead, we ask that you focus on the content.

Every Health Leader advocates in their own unique way. While some categories, like Social Media Master, celebrate a visible public presence, others honor vital work done in potentially private settings - such as a Community Cultivator nominee moderating a closed Facebook group. If you have questions about how to assess a specific nominee, our team is here to support you.

The Social Health Award winners will be announced during a virtual awards ceremony. You are more than welcome to attend! As a valued judge, you will receive a special notification immediately following the announcement to let you know who the winners are.

We are thrilled that you participated as a judge and excited you’d like to get more involved in our program. We are always looking for help to improve our awards program, amplify patient voices, and foster valuable connections between patients and industry. If you have ideas or feedback you’d like to share, or simply want to learn about more ways to get involved with Health Union, please reach out to contact@socialhealthawards.com.