Social networks--are they good for your health? The era of Facebook and Twitter

Social media analytics and reachability evaluation - #Diabetes

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Diabetes as a lifestyle disorder could be effectively managed by creating awareness among people through social media. Understanding the content of Twitter messages will aid in strategizing health communication about diabetes to the community through Twitter. This study aimed to analyze the content, sentiment, and reachability of diabetes related tweets posted in India.

METHODS

Diabetes related messages from India were collected via Twitter's Application Programming Interface for April 2019. Themes and subthemes of tweet content were identified from randomly selected tweets. The tweets were coded as the source, themes, and subthemes manually. Sentiment analysis of the tweets was done by a lexicon-based approach. The reachability of tweets was assessed based on re-tweet and favorite counts.

RESULTS

Out of 1840 tweets, 57.28% were from organizations and 42.72% were from individuals. The largest proportion of tweet messages were informative (50.76%), followed by promotional tweets (21.52%). The largest proportion of tweets were positive (40.4%) followed by neutral (31.14%) tweets. Among the six major themes, the diabetes story had the highest reachability.

CONCLUSIONS

The outcome of this study would aid public health professionals in planning information dissemination and communication regarding diabetes on Twitter so that the right information reaches a wider population.

Twitter as a Mental Health Support System for Students and Professionals in the Medical Field

Twitter is a rapidly growing social media site that has greatly integrated itself in the lives of students and professionals in the medical field. While Twitter has been found to be very helpful in facilitating education, there is also great potential for its usage as a social support system. Social support has become more essential as society grapples with declining mental health, particularly in the medical sector. In our previous paper, we saw that Twitter provides a promising tool to learn more about the online conversation about dementia and, in particular, the supportive network that can be created. Inspired by this, we decided to investigate the potential of using Twitter as a support system for students and professionals in the medical field. In this paper, we explore the current state of mental health in the medical field and suggest practical implementation methods for using Twitter.

Perceptions of cervical cancer prevention on Twitter uncovered by different sampling strategies

Introduction

Cervical cancer prevention is possible through use of the HPV vaccine and Pap tests, yet the vaccine remains underutilized.

Methods

We obtained publicly-available Twitter data from 2014 using three sampling strategies (top-ranked, simple random sample, and topic model) based on key words related to cervical cancer prevention. We conducted a content analysis of 100 tweets from each of the three samples and examined the extent to which the narratives and frequency of themes differed across samples.

Results

Advocacy-related tweets constituted the most prevalent theme to emerge across all three sample types, and were most frequently found in the top-ranked sample. A random sample detected the same themes as topic modeling, but the relative frequency of themes identified from topic modeling fell in-between top-ranked and random samples.

Discussion

Variations in themes uncovered by different sampling methods suggest it is useful to qualitatively assess the relative frequency of themes to better understand the breadth and depth of social media conversations about health.

Conclusions

Future studies using social media data should consider sampling methods to uncover a wider breadth of conversations about health on social media.

Applying Sparse Machine Learning Methods to Twitter: Analysis of the 2012 Change in Pap Smear Guidelines. A Sequential Mixed-Methods Study

BACKGROUND

It is difficult to synthesize the vast amount of textual data available from social media websites. Capturing real-world discussions via social media could provide insights into individuals' opinions and the decision-making process.

OBJECTIVE

We conducted a sequential mixed methods study to determine the utility of sparse machine learning techniques in summarizing Twitter dialogues. We chose a narrowly defined topic for this approach: cervical cancer discussions over a 6-month time period surrounding a change in Pap smear screening guidelines.

METHODS

We applied statistical methodologies, known as sparse machine learning algorithms, to summarize Twitter messages about cervical cancer before and after the 2012 change in Pap smear screening guidelines by the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). All messages containing the search terms "cervical cancer," "Pap smear," and "Pap test" were analyzed during: (1) January 1-March 13, 2012, and (2) March 14-June 30, 2012. Topic modeling was used to discern the most common topics from each time period, and determine the singular value criterion for each topic. The results were then qualitatively coded from top 10 relevant topics to determine the efficiency of clustering method in grouping distinct ideas, and how the discussion differed before vs. after the change in guidelines .

RESULTS

This machine learning method was effective in grouping the relevant discussion topics about cervical cancer during the respective time periods (~20% overall irrelevant content in both time periods). Qualitative analysis determined that a significant portion of the top discussion topics in the second time period directly reflected the USPSTF guideline change (eg, "New Screening Guidelines for Cervical Cancer"), and many topics in both time periods were addressing basic screening promotion and education (eg, "It is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month! Click the link to see where you can receive a free or low cost Pap test.")

CONCLUSIONS

It was demonstrated that machine learning tools can be useful in cervical cancer prevention and screening discussions on Twitter. This method allowed us to prove that there is publicly available significant information about cervical cancer screening on social media sites. Moreover, we observed a direct impact of the guideline change within the Twitter messages.

Do motivations for using Facebook moderate the association between Facebook use and psychological well-being?

Previous investigations of the relationship between Facebook use and psychological well-being have most commonly considered variables relating to the quantity (e.g., time spent online) and underlying motivations (e.g., making new friends) of Facebook consumption. However, previous research has reached contradictory conclusions in that quantity of Facebook use has been linked to both higher and lower levels of psychological well-being. The current study investigated whether these contradictory findings of quantity of Facebook use could be explained by considering users’ motivations for accessing Facebook. We predicted that quantity of use would be positively associated with psychological well-being when users primarily accessed Facebook to maintain existing relationships but negatively associated with psychological well-being when primarily accessed to create new relationships. In a sample of college undergraduates (N = 119), we found that the relationship of quantity of Facebook use on psychological well-being was moderated by the motivation of the user. Quantity of Facebook use was associated with higher levels of psychological well-being among users that accessed Facebook for friendship purposes but was negatively associated with psychological well-being among users that accessed Facebook for connection purposes (e.g., making new friends). We also replicated our results across dimensions of psychological well-being (e.g., anxiety and life satisfaction). The current findings provide initial evidence that quantity and motivations of Facebook use interact with potentially serious implications for psychological well-being and also provide a possible explanation for why quantity of Facebook use can be linked with both positive and negative psychological well-being.

The Importance of Awareness and Education in Prevention and Control of RHD

Acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease are diseases of poverty, low socioeconomic status, and inadequate access to health care. These preventable diseases remain largely ignored by the developed world while they continue to cause significant mortality and morbidity in the developing world. In the face of no existing cure, we need to focus on prevention and control methods. To this end, creating awareness of the disease and its effects on millions of people in the world is critically important. In this review, we will outline the importance of these efforts, discuss the barriers to awareness and education, and highlight some important models in this arena. We strongly support awareness-raising and health promotion strategies as an integral part of a rheumatic heart disease prevention and control program.

How Twitter Is Studied in the Medical Professions: A Classification of Twitter Papers Indexed in PubMed

Background

Since their inception, Twitter and related microblogging systems have provided a rich source of information for researchers and have attracted interest in their affordances and use. Since 2009 PubMed has included 123 journal articles on medicine and Twitter, but no overview exists as to how the field uses Twitter in research.

Objective

This paper aims to identify published work relating to Twitter within the fields indexed by PubMed, and then to classify it. This classification will provide a framework in which future researchers will be able to position their work, and to provide an understanding of the current reach of research using Twitter in medical disciplines.

Methods

Papers on Twitter and related topics were identified and reviewed. The papers were then qualitatively classified based on the paper’s title and abstract to determine their focus. The work that was Twitter focused was studied in detail to determine what data, if any, it was based on, and from this a categorization of the data set size used in the studies was developed. Using open coded content analysis additional important categories were also identified, relating to the primary methodology, domain, and aspect.

Results

As of 2012, PubMed comprises more than 21 million citations from biomedical literature, and from these a corpus of 134 potentially Twitter related papers were identified, eleven of which were subsequently found not to be relevant. There were no papers prior to 2009 relating to microblogging, a term first used in 2006. Of the remaining 123 papers which mentioned Twitter, thirty were focused on Twitter (the others referring to it tangentially). The early Twitter focused papers introduced the topic and highlighted the potential, not carrying out any form of data analysis. The majority of published papers used analytic techniques to sort through thousands, if not millions, of individual tweets, often depending on automated tools to do so. Our analysis demonstrates that researchers are starting to use knowledge discovery methods and data mining techniques to understand vast quantities of tweets: the study of Twitter is becoming quantitative research.

Conclusions

This work is to the best of our knowledge the first overview study of medical related research based on Twitter and related microblogging. We have used 5 dimensions to categorize published medical related research on Twitter. This classification provides a framework within which researchers studying development and use of Twitter within medical related research, and those undertaking comparative studies of research, relating to Twitter in the area of medicine and beyond, can position and ground their work.

"5 mins of uncomfyness is better than dealing with cancer 4 a lifetime": an exploratory qualitative analysis of cervical and breast cancer screening dialogue on Twitter

Twitter.com is a "micro-blogging" website. Although Twitter use is growing rapidly, little is known about health behavior discussions on this site, even though a majority of messages are publicly available. We retrieved publicly available Twitter messages during a 5-week period in early 2012, searching separately for the terms "Pap smear" and "mammogram." We used content analysis to code each 140-character message, generating a separate coding framework for each cancer screening term and calculating the frequencies of comments. Using the brief account description, we also coded the author as individual, organization, or news media outlet. There were 203 Pap smear and 271 mammogram messages coded, over three fourths of which were from individual accounts. Overall, 22 % of Pap smear messages and 25 % of mammogram messages discussed personal experiences, including attending appointments, negative sentiment about the procedure, and results. Other messages from both individuals and organizations (8 % Pap smear, 18 % mammogram) promoted screening. About one quarter of the messages expressed personal experiences with cancer screening. This demonstrates that Twitter can be a rich source of information and could be used to design new health-related interventions.

Cancer patients on Twitter: a novel patient community on social media

Background

Patients increasingly turn to the Internet for information on medical conditions, including clinical news and treatment options. In recent years, an online patient community has arisen alongside the rapidly expanding world of social media, or “Web 2.0.” Twitter provides real-time dissemination of news, information, personal accounts and other details via a highly interactive form of social media, and has become an important online tool for patients. This medium is now considered to play an important role in the modern social community of online, “wired” cancer patients.

Results

Fifty-one highly influential “power accounts” belonging to cancer patients were extracted from a dataset of 731 Twitter accounts with cancer terminology in their profiles. In accordance with previously established methodology, “power accounts” were defined as those Twitter accounts with 500 or more followers. We extracted data on the cancer patient (female) with the most followers to study the specific relationships that existed between the user and her followers, and found that the majority of the examined tweets focused on greetings, treatment discussions, and other instances of psychological support. These findings went against our hypothesis that cancer patients’ tweets would be centered on the dissemination of medical information and similar “newsy” details.

Conclusions

At present, there exists a rapidly evolving network of cancer patients engaged in information exchange via Twitter. This network is valuable in the sharing of psychological support among the cancer community.

Social networking sites and adolescent health

Social networking sites are popular among and consistently used by adolescents. These sites present benefits as well as risks to adolescent health. Recently, pediatric providers have also considered the benefits and risks of using social networking sites in their own practices.