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Hakariya H, Yokoyama N, Lee J, Hakariya A, Ikejiri T. Illicit Trade of Prescription Medications Through X (Formerly Twitter) in Japan: Cross-Sectional Study. JMIR Form Res 2024; 8:e54023. [PMID: 38805262 PMCID: PMC11167319 DOI: 10.2196/54023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2023] [Revised: 03/09/2024] [Accepted: 03/14/2024] [Indexed: 05/29/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Nonmedical use of prescription drugs can cause overdose; this represents a serious public health crisis globally. In this digital era, social networking services serve as viable platforms for illegal acquisition of excessive amounts of medications, including prescription medications. In Japan, such illegal drug transactions have been conducted through popular flea market applications, social media, and auction websites, with most of the trades being over-the-counter (OTC) medications. Recently, an emerging unique black market, where individuals trade prescription medications-predominantly nervous system drugs-using a specific keyword ("Okusuri Mogu Mogu"), has emerged on X (formerly Twitter). Hence, these dynamic methods of illicit trading should routinely be monitored to encourage the appropriate use of medications. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to specify the characteristics of medications traded on X using the search term "Okusuri Mogu Mogu" and analyze individual behaviors associated with X posts, including the types of medications traded and hashtag usage. METHODS We conducted a cross-sectional study with publicly available posts on X between September 18 and October 1, 2022. Posts that included the term "Okusuri Mogu Mogu" during this period were scrutinized. Posts were categorized on the basis of their contents: buying, selling, self-administration, heads-up, and others. Among posts categorized as buying, selling, and self-administration, medication names were systematically enumerated and categorized using the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) classification. Additionally, hashtags in all the analyzed posts were counted and classified into 6 categories: medication name, mental disorder, self-harm, buying and selling, community formation, and others. RESULTS Out of 961 identified posts, 549 were included for analysis. Of these posts, 119 (21.7%) referenced self-administration, and 237 (43.2%; buying: n=67, 12.2%; selling: n=170, 31.0%) referenced transactions. Among these 237 posts, 1041 medication names were mentioned, exhibiting a >5-fold increase from the study in March 2021. Categorization based on the ATC classification predominantly revealed nervous system drugs, representing 82.1% (n=855) of the mentioned medications, consistent with the previous survey. Of note, the diversity of medications has expanded to include medications that have not been approved by the Japanese government. Interestingly, OTC medications were frequently mentioned in self-administration posts (odds ratio 23.6, 95% CI 6.93-80.15). Analysis of hashtags (n=866) revealed efforts to foster community connections among users. CONCLUSIONS This study highlighted the escalating complexity of trading of illegal prescription medication facilitated by X posts. Regulatory measures to enhance public awareness should be considered to prevent illegal transactions, which may ultimately lead to misuse or abuse such as overdose. Along with such pharmacovigilance measures, social approaches that could direct individuals to appropriate medical or psychiatric resources would also be beneficial as our hashtag analysis shed light on the formation of a cohesive or closed community among users.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hayase Hakariya
- Interfaculty Institute of Biochemistry, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany
- Laboratory for Human Nature, Cultures and Medicine, Shiga, Japan
| | - Natsuki Yokoyama
- Laboratory for Human Nature, Cultures and Medicine, Shiga, Japan
- Department of Pharmacy, Chubu Tokushukai Hospital, Okinawa, Japan
| | - Jeonse Lee
- Laboratory for Human Nature, Cultures and Medicine, Shiga, Japan
- School of Medicine, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan
| | - Arisa Hakariya
- Laboratory for Human Nature, Cultures and Medicine, Shiga, Japan
- General Hospital Minami Seikyo Hospital, Aichi, Japan
| | - Tatsuki Ikejiri
- Laboratory for Human Nature, Cultures and Medicine, Shiga, Japan
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Kariya A, Okada H, Suzuki S, Dote S, Nishikawa Y, Araki K, Takahashi Y, Nakayama T. Internet-Based Inquiries From Users With the Intention to Overdose With Over-the-Counter Drugs: Qualitative Analysis of Yahoo! Chiebukuro. JMIR Form Res 2023; 7:e45021. [PMID: 37991829 DOI: 10.2196/45021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2022] [Revised: 08/17/2023] [Accepted: 09/18/2023] [Indexed: 11/23/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Public concern with regard to over-the-counter (OTC) drug abuse is growing rapidly across countries. OTC drug abuse has serious effects on the mind and body, such as poisoning symptoms, and often requires specialized treatments. In contrast, there is concern about people who potentially abuse OTC drugs whose symptoms are not serious enough to consult medical institutions or drug addiction rehabilitation centers yet are at high risk of becoming drug dependent in the future. OBJECTIVE Consumer-generated media (CGM), which allows users to disseminate information, is being used by people who abuse (and those who are trying to abuse) OTC drugs to obtain information about OTC drug abuse. This study aims to analyze the content of CGM to explore the questions of people who potentially abuse OTC drugs. METHODS The subject of this research was Yahoo! Chiebukuro, the largest question and answer website in Japan. A search was performed using the names of drugs commonly used in OTC drug abuse and the keywords overdose and OD, and the number of questions posted on the content of OTC drug abuse was counted. Furthermore, a thematic analysis was conducted by extracting text data on the most abused antitussive and expectorant drug, BRON. RESULTS The number of questions about the content of overdose medications containing the keyword BRON has increased sharply as compared with other product names. Furthermore, 467 items of question data that met the eligibility criteria were obtained from 528 items of text data on BRON; 26 codes, 6 categories, and 3 themes were generated from the 578 questions contained in these items. Questions were asked about the effects they would gain from abusing OTC drugs and the information they needed to obtain the effects they sought, as well as about the effects of abuse on their bodies. Moreover, there were questions on how to stop abusing and what is needed when seeking help from a health care provider if they become dependent. It has become clear that people who abuse OTC drugs have difficulty in consulting face-to-face with others, and CGM is used as a means to obtain the necessary information anonymously. CONCLUSIONS On CGM, people who abused or tried to abuse OTC drugs were asking questions about their abuse expectations and anxieties. In addition, when they became dependent, they sought advice to quit their abuse. CGM was used to exchange information about OTC drug abuse, and many questions on anxieties and hesitations were posted. This study suggests that it is necessary to produce and disseminate information on OTC drug abuse, considering the situation of those who abuse or are willing to abuse OTC drugs. Support from pharmacies and drugstores would also be essential to reduce opportunities for OTC drug abuse.
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Affiliation(s)
- Azusa Kariya
- Department of Health Informatics, Graduate School of Medicine & School of Public Health, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
| | - Hiroshi Okada
- Department of Health Informatics, Graduate School of Medicine & School of Public Health, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
- Department of Social & Community Pharmacy, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Wakayama Medical University, Wakayama, Japan
| | - Shota Suzuki
- Department of Health Informatics, Graduate School of Medicine & School of Public Health, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
- Department of Social & Community Pharmacy, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Wakayama Medical University, Wakayama, Japan
- Institute for Clinical and Translational Science, Nara Medical University Hospital, Kashihara, Japan
| | - Satoshi Dote
- Department of Pharmacy, Kyoto-Katsura Hospital, Kyoto, Japan
| | - Yoshitaka Nishikawa
- Department of Health Informatics, Graduate School of Medicine & School of Public Health, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
| | - Kazuo Araki
- Department of Health Informatics, Graduate School of Medicine & School of Public Health, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
| | - Yoshimitsu Takahashi
- Department of Health Informatics, Graduate School of Medicine & School of Public Health, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
| | - Takeo Nakayama
- Department of Health Informatics, Graduate School of Medicine & School of Public Health, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
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Turki H, Jemielniak D, Hadj Taieb MA, Labra Gayo JE, Ben Aouicha M, Banat M, Shafee T, Prud’hommeaux E, Lubiana T, Das D, Mietchen D. Using logical constraints to validate statistical information about disease outbreaks in collaborative knowledge graphs: the case of COVID-19 epidemiology in Wikidata. PeerJ Comput Sci 2022; 8:e1085. [PMID: 36262159 PMCID: PMC9575845 DOI: 10.7717/peerj-cs.1085] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/07/2022] [Accepted: 08/15/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
Urgent global research demands real-time dissemination of precise data. Wikidata, a collaborative and openly licensed knowledge graph available in RDF format, provides an ideal forum for exchanging structured data that can be verified and consolidated using validation schemas and bot edits. In this research article, we catalog an automatable task set necessary to assess and validate the portion of Wikidata relating to the COVID-19 epidemiology. These tasks assess statistical data and are implemented in SPARQL, a query language for semantic databases. We demonstrate the efficiency of our methods for evaluating structured non-relational information on COVID-19 in Wikidata, and its applicability in collaborative ontologies and knowledge graphs more broadly. We show the advantages and limitations of our proposed approach by comparing it to the features of other methods for the validation of linked web data as revealed by previous research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Houcemeddine Turki
- Data Engineering and Semantics Research Unit, Faculty of Sciences of Sfax, University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia
| | - Dariusz Jemielniak
- Department of Management in Networked and Digital Societies, Kozminski University, Warsaw, Masovia, Poland
| | - Mohamed A. Hadj Taieb
- Data Engineering and Semantics Research Unit, Faculty of Sciences of Sfax, University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia
| | - Jose E. Labra Gayo
- Web Semantics Oviedo (WESO) Research Group, University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Asturias, Spain
| | - Mohamed Ben Aouicha
- Data Engineering and Semantics Research Unit, Faculty of Sciences of Sfax, University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia
| | - Mus’ab Banat
- Faculty of Medicine, Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan
| | - Thomas Shafee
- La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
| | - Eric Prud’hommeaux
- World Wide Web Consortium, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Tiago Lubiana
- Computational Systems Biology Laboratory, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Diptanshu Das
- Institute of Child Health (ICH), Kolkata, West Bengal, India
- Medica Superspecialty Hospital, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
| | - Daniel Mietchen
- Ronin Institute, Montclair, New Jersey, United States of America
- Department of Evolutionary and Integrative Ecology, Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Berlin, Germany
- School of Data Science, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States
- Institute for Globally Distributed Open Research and Education (IGDORE), Jena, Germany
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Tong C, Margolin D, Chunara R, Niederdeppe J, Taylor T, Dunbar N, King AJ. Search Term Identification Methods for Computational Health Communication: Word Embedding and Network Approach for Health Content on YouTube. JMIR Med Inform 2022; 10:e37862. [PMID: 36040760 PMCID: PMC9472050 DOI: 10.2196/37862] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/09/2022] [Revised: 06/13/2022] [Accepted: 07/22/2022] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Background Common methods for extracting content in health communication research typically involve using a set of well-established queries, often names of medical procedures or diseases, that are often technical or rarely used in the public discussion of health topics. Although these methods produce high recall (ie, retrieve highly relevant content), they tend to overlook health messages that feature colloquial language and layperson vocabularies on social media. Given how such messages could contain misinformation or obscure content that circumvents official medical concepts, correctly identifying (and analyzing) them is crucial to the study of user-generated health content on social media platforms. Objective Health communication scholars would benefit from a retrieval process that goes beyond the use of standard terminologies as search queries. Motivated by this, this study aims to put forward a search term identification method to improve the retrieval of user-generated health content on social media. We focused on cancer screening tests as a subject and YouTube as a platform case study. Methods We retrieved YouTube videos using cancer screening procedures (colonoscopy, fecal occult blood test, mammogram, and pap test) as seed queries. We then trained word embedding models using text features from these videos to identify the nearest neighbor terms that are semantically similar to cancer screening tests in colloquial language. Retrieving more YouTube videos from the top neighbor terms, we coded a sample of 150 random videos from each term for relevance. We then used text mining to examine the new content retrieved from these videos and network analysis to inspect the relations between the newly retrieved videos and videos from the seed queries. Results The top terms with semantic similarities to cancer screening tests were identified via word embedding models. Text mining analysis showed that the 5 nearest neighbor terms retrieved content that was novel and contextually diverse, beyond the content retrieved from cancer screening concepts alone. Results from network analysis showed that the newly retrieved videos had at least one total degree of connection (sum of indegree and outdegree) with seed videos according to YouTube relatedness measures. Conclusions We demonstrated a retrieval technique to improve recall and minimize precision loss, which can be extended to various health topics on YouTube, a popular video-sharing social media platform. We discussed how health communication scholars can apply the technique to inspect the performance of the retrieval strategy before investing human coding resources and outlined suggestions on how such a technique can be extended to other health contexts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chau Tong
- Department of Communication, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States
| | - Drew Margolin
- Department of Communication, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States
| | - Rumi Chunara
- Department of Biostatistics, School of Global Public Health, New York University, New York, NY, United States.,Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, New York, NY, United States
| | - Jeff Niederdeppe
- Department of Communication, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States.,Jeb E Brooks School of Public Policy, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States
| | - Teairah Taylor
- Department of Communication, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States
| | - Natalie Dunbar
- Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, United States
| | - Andy J King
- Cancer Control and Population Sciences, Huntsman Cancer Institute, Salt Lake City, UT, United States.,Department of Communication, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, United States
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Chang E. A vector-based semantic relatedness measure using multiple relations within SNOMED CT and UMLS. J Biomed Inform 2022; 131:104118. [PMID: 35690349 DOI: 10.1016/j.jbi.2022.104118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/06/2022] [Revised: 05/26/2022] [Accepted: 06/05/2022] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE To propose a new vector-based relatedness metric that derives word vectors from the intrinsic structure of biomedical ontologies, without consulting external resources such as large-scale biomedical corpora. MATERIALS AND METHODS SNOMED CT on the mapping layer of UMLS was used as a testbed ontology. Vectors were created for every concept at the end of all semantic relations-attribute-value relations and descendants as well as is_a relation-of the defining concept. The cosine similarity between the averages of those vectors with respect to each defining concept was computed to produce a final semantic relatedness. RESULTS Two benchmark sets that include a total of 62 biomedical term pairs were used for evaluation. Spearman's rank coefficient of the current method was 0.655, 0.744, and 0.742 with the relatedness rated by physicians, coders, and medical experts, respectively. The proposed method was comparable to a word-embedding method and outperformed path-based, information content-based, and another multiple relation-based relatedness metrics. DISCUSSION The current study demonstrated that the addition of attribute relations to the is_a hierarchy of SNOMED CT better conforms to the human sense of relatedness than models based on taxonomic relations. The current approach also showed that it is robust to the design inconsistency of ontologies. CONCLUSION Unlike the previous vector-based approach, the current study exploited the intrinsic semantic structure of an ontology, precluding the need for external textual resources to obtain context information of defining terms. Future research is recommended to prove the validity of the current method with other biomedical ontologies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eunsuk Chang
- Carolina Health Informatics Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
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6
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Kamba M, Manabe M, Wakamiya S, Yada S, Aramaki E, Odani S, Miyashiro I. Medical Needs Extraction for Breast Cancer Patients from Question and Answer Services: Natural Language Processing-Based Approach. JMIR Cancer 2021; 7:e32005. [PMID: 34709187 PMCID: PMC8587180 DOI: 10.2196/32005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/14/2021] [Revised: 09/25/2021] [Accepted: 10/04/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND A large number of patient narratives are available on various web services. As for web question and answer services, patient questions often relate to medical needs, and we expect these questions to provide clues for a better understanding of patients' medical needs. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to extract patients' needs and classify them into thematic categories. Clarifying patient needs is the first step in solving social issues that patients with cancer encounter. METHODS For this study, we used patient question texts containing the key phrase "breast cancer," available at the Yahoo! Japan question and answer service, Yahoo! Chiebukuro, which contains over 60,000 questions on cancer. First, we converted the question text into a vector representation. Next, the relevance between patient needs and existing cancer needs categories was calculated based on cosine similarity. RESULTS The proportion of correct classifications in our proposed method was approximately 70%. Considering the results of classifying questions, we found the variation and the number of needs. CONCLUSIONS We created 3 corpora to classify the problems of patients with cancer. The proposed method was able to classify the problems considering the question text. Moreover, as an application example, the question text that included the side effect signaling of drugs and the unmet needs of cancer patients could be extracted. Revealing these needs is important to fulfill the medical needs of patients with cancer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Masaru Kamba
- Division of Information Science, Graduate School of Science and Technology, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Nara, Japan
| | - Masae Manabe
- Division of Information Science, Graduate School of Science and Technology, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Nara, Japan
| | - Shoko Wakamiya
- Division of Information Science, Graduate School of Science and Technology, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Nara, Japan
| | - Shuntaro Yada
- Division of Information Science, Graduate School of Science and Technology, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Nara, Japan
| | - Eiji Aramaki
- Division of Information Science, Graduate School of Science and Technology, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Nara, Japan
| | - Satomi Odani
- Cancer Control Center, Osaka International Cancer Institute, Osaka, Japan
| | - Isao Miyashiro
- Cancer Control Center, Osaka International Cancer Institute, Osaka, Japan
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Alarifi M, Patrick T, Jabour A, Wu M, Luo J. Understanding patient needs and gaps in radiology reports through online discussion forum analysis. Insights Imaging 2021; 12:50. [PMID: 33871753 PMCID: PMC8055745 DOI: 10.1186/s13244-020-00930-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2020] [Accepted: 10/16/2020] [Indexed: 01/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Our objective is to investigate patient needs and understand information gaps in radiology reports using patient questions that were posted on online discussion forums. We leveraged online question and answer platforms to collect questions posted by patients to understand current gaps and patient needs. We retrieved six hundred fifty-nine (659) questions using the following sites: Yahoo Answers, Reddit.com, Quora, and Wiki Answers. The questions retrieved were analyzed and the major themes and topics were identified. The questions retrieved were classified into eight major themes. The themes were related to the following topics: radiology report, safety, price, preparation, procedure, meaning, medical staff, and patient portal. Among the 659 questions, 35.50% were concerned with the radiology report. The most common question topics in the radiology report focused on patient understanding of the radiology report (62 of 234 [26.49%]), image visualization (53 of 234 [22.64%]), and report representation (46 of 234 [19.65%]). We also found that most patients were concerned about understanding the MRI report (32%; n = 143) compared with the other imaging modalities (n = 434). Using online discussion forums, we discussed major unmet patient needs and information gaps in radiology reports. These issues could be improved to enhance radiology design in the future.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mohammad Alarifi
- College of Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, 53211, USA.,College of Applied Medical Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
| | - Timothy Patrick
- College of Engineering, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, 53211, USA
| | - Abdulrahman Jabour
- Health Informatics Department, Faculty of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Jazan University, Jazan, Saudi Arabia
| | - Min Wu
- College of Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, 53211, USA
| | - Jake Luo
- College of Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, 53211, USA.
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Alasmari A, Zhou L. Share to Seek: The Effects of Disease Complexity on Health Information-Seeking Behavior. J Med Internet Res 2021; 23:e21642. [PMID: 33759803 PMCID: PMC8074994 DOI: 10.2196/21642] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/07/2020] [Revised: 10/08/2020] [Accepted: 01/10/2021] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Background Web-based question and answer (Q&A) sites have emerged as an alternative source for serving individuals’ health information needs. Although a number of studies have analyzed user-generated content in web-based Q&A sites, there is insufficient understanding of the effect of disease complexity on information-seeking needs and the types of information shared, and little research has been devoted to the questions concerning multimorbidity. Objective This study aims to investigate seeking of health information in Q&A sites at different levels of disease complexity. Specifically, this study investigates the effects of disease complexity on information-seeking needs, types of information shared, and stages of disease development. Methods First, we selected a random sample of 400 questions separately from each of the Q&A sites: Yahoo Answers and WebMD Answers. The data cleaning resulted in a final set of 624 questions from the two sites. We used a mixed methods approach, including qualitative content analysis and quantitative statistical analysis. Results The one-way results of ANOVA showed significant effects of disease complexity (single vs multimorbid disease questions) on two information-seeking needs: diagnosis (F1,622=5.08; P=.02) and treatment (F1,622=4.82; P=.02). There were also significant differences between the two levels of disease complexity in two stages of disease development: the general health stage (F1,622=48.02; P<.001) and the chronic stage (F1,622=54.01; P<.001). In addition, our results showed significant effects of disease complexity across all types of shared information: demographic information (F1,622=32.24; P<.001), medical diagnosis (F1,622=11.04; P<.001), and treatment and prevention (F1,622=14.55; P<.001). Conclusions Our findings present implications for the design of web-based Q&A sites to better support health information seeking. Future studies should be conducted to validate the generality of these findings and apply them to improve the effectiveness of health information in Q&A sites.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ashwag Alasmari
- University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, United States.,King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia
| | - Lina Zhou
- University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, United States
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Lu Y, Luo X, Zhang Z, Ding H, He Z. Retrieving Lab Test Related Questions from Social Q&A Sites by Combining Shallow Features and Deep Representations. AMIA ... ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM PROCEEDINGS. AMIA SYMPOSIUM 2021; 2020:783-792. [PMID: 33936453 PMCID: PMC8075538] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
Patients face challenges in accurately interpreting their lab test results. To fulfill their knowledge gap, patients often turn to online resources, such as Community Question-Answering (CQA) sites, to seek meaningful information and support from their peers. Retrieving the most relevant information to patients' queries is important to help patients understand lab test results. However, few studies investigated the retrieval of lab test-related questions on CQA platforms. To address this research gap, we build and evaluate a system that automatically ranks questions about lab tests based on their similarity to a given question. The system is tested using diabetes-related questions collected from Yahoo! Answers' health section. Experimental results show that the regression-weighted combination of deep representations and shallow features was most effective in the Yahoo! Answers dataset. The proposed system can be extended to medical question retrieval, where questions contain a variety of lab tests.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yu Lu
- Pace University, New York, NY, USA
- Florida state University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
| | - Xiao Luo
- Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN, USA
| | | | - Haoran Ding
- Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN, USA
| | - Zhe He
- Florida state University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
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10
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Zhang Z, Citardi D, Xing A, Luo X, Lu Y, He Z. Patient Challenges and Needs in Comprehending Laboratory Test Results: Mixed Methods Study. J Med Internet Res 2020; 22:e18725. [PMID: 33284117 PMCID: PMC7752528 DOI: 10.2196/18725] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2020] [Revised: 08/11/2020] [Accepted: 11/11/2020] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Background Patients are increasingly able to access their laboratory test results via patient portals. However, merely providing access does not guarantee comprehension. Patients could experience confusion when reviewing their test results. Objective The aim of this study is to examine the challenges and needs of patients when comprehending laboratory test results. Methods We conducted a web-based survey with 203 participants and a set of semistructured interviews with 13 participants. We assessed patients’ perceived challenges and needs (both informational and technological needs) when they attempted to comprehend test results, factors associated with patients’ perceptions, and strategies for improving the design of patient portals to communicate laboratory test results more effectively. Descriptive and correlation analysis and thematic analysis were used to analyze the survey and interview data, respectively. Results Patients face a variety of challenges and confusion when reviewing laboratory test results. To better comprehend laboratory results, patients need different types of information, which are grouped into 2 categories—generic information (eg, reference range) and personalized or contextual information (eg, treatment options, prognosis, what to do or ask next). We also found that several intrinsic factors (eg, laboratory result normality, health literacy, and technology proficiency) significantly impact people’s perceptions of using portals to view and interpret laboratory results. The desired enhancements of patient portals include providing timely explanations and educational resources (eg, a health encyclopedia), increasing usability and accessibility, and incorporating artificial intelligence–based technology to provide personalized recommendations. Conclusions Patients face significant challenges in interpreting the meaning of laboratory test results. Designers and developers of patient portals should employ user-centered approaches to improve the design of patient portals to present information in a more meaningful way.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhan Zhang
- School of Computer Science and Information Systems, Pace University, New York, NY, United States
| | - Daniel Citardi
- School of Computer Science and Information Systems, Pace University, New York, NY, United States
| | - Aiwen Xing
- Department of Statistics, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, United States
| | - Xiao Luo
- School of Engineering and Technology, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN, United States
| | - Yu Lu
- School of Computer Science and Information Systems, Pace University, New York, NY, United States
| | - Zhe He
- School of Information, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, United States
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11
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Topic Modeling for Analyzing Patients' Perceptions and Concerns of Hearing Loss on Social Q&A Sites: Incorporating Patients' Perspective. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH 2020; 17:ijerph17176209. [PMID: 32867035 PMCID: PMC7503893 DOI: 10.3390/ijerph17176209] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/27/2020] [Revised: 08/09/2020] [Accepted: 08/24/2020] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Hearing loss is the most common human sensory deficit, affecting normal communication. Recently, patients with hearing loss or at risk of hearing loss are increasingly turning to the online health community for health information and support. Information on health-related topics exchanged on the Internet is a useful resource to examine patients' informational needs. The ability to understand the patients' perspectives on hearing loss is critical for health professionals to develop a patient-centered intervention. In this paper, we apply Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) on electronic patient-authored questions on social question-and-answer (Q&A) sites to identify patients' perceptions, concerns, and needs on hearing loss. Our results reveal 21 topics, which are both representative and meaningful, and mostly correspond to sub-fields established in hearing science research. The latent topics are classified into five themes, which include "sudden hearing loss", "tinnitus", "noise-induced hearing loss", "hearing aids", "dizziness", "curiosity about hearing loss", "otitis media" and "complications of disease". Our topic analysis of patients' questions on the topic of hearing loss allows achieving a thorough understanding of patients' perspectives, thereby leading to better development of the patient-centered intervention.
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Health information seeking among people with multiple chronic conditions: Contextual factors and their associations mined from questions in social media. LIBRARY & INFORMATION SCIENCE RESEARCH 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.lisr.2020.101030] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
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Alasmari A, Zhou L. How multimorbid health information consumers interact in an online community Q&A platform. Int J Med Inform 2019; 131:103958. [PMID: 31521012 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2019.103958] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/10/2019] [Revised: 08/09/2019] [Accepted: 09/03/2019] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND There is an increasing population of health information consumers (HIC) with multiple conditions (multimorbid). Previous studies explored the online behavior of HIC in general or HIC with a specific disease; however, the behavior of multimorbid HIC remains poorly researched. OBJECTIVES This research aims to investigate the behaviors of the multimorbid HIC on community Q&A platforms. METHODS Using kidney disease, a prevalent disease with high likelihood of multimorbidity as a case, we analyzed the online interaction behaviors of HIC with multimorbidity in Quora, a community Q&A platform, and compared them to those of single-disease HIC. RESULTS The findings of this study reveal significant differences in the online interaction behavior between HIC of single vs. multimorbid diseases. Compared with single-disease HIC, multimorbid HIC are more active in multiple aspects, such as asking questions, following different topics or users, and providing suggestions for improvement of questions and answers. Additionally, multimorbid HIC are more likely to add topics to their questions, and their questions tend to attract more answers than those of single-disease HIC. On the other hand, questions and answers provided from single disease HIC had more views, followers, and upvotes than those from multimorbid HIC. CONCLUSION The high level of activity among multimorbid HIC can be explained by their complex needs for information, driving an increased number of questions and drawing more attention from the whole community in answering them. Multimorbid HIC appear to be valuable contributors to the online community and reasons for the reduced visibility and upvoting of their answers should be investigated.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ashwag Alasmari
- University of Maryland, Baltimore County, MD, United States; King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia.
| | - Lina Zhou
- University of North Carolina at Charlotte, NC, United States
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Zhang Z, Lu Y, Kou Y, Wu DTY, Huh-Yoo J, He Z. Understanding Patient Information Needs About Their Clinical Laboratory Results: A Study of Social Q&A Site. Stud Health Technol Inform 2019; 264:1403-1407. [PMID: 31438157 DOI: 10.3233/shti190458] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
Clinical data, such as laboratory test results, is increasingly being made available to patients through patient portals. However, patients often have difficulties understanding and acting upon the clinical data presented in portals. As such, many turn to online resources to fill their knowledge gaps and obtain actionable advice. In this work, we present a content analysis of the questions posted in a major social Q&A site to characterize lay people's general information needs concerning laboratory test results and to inform the design of patient portals for supporting patients' understanding of clinical data. We identified 15 information needs related to laboratory test results, and clustered them under four themes: understanding the results of lab test, interpreting doctor's diagnosis, learning about lab tests, and consulting the next steps. We draw on our findings to discuss design opportunities for supporting the understanding of laboratory results.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhan Zhang
- Department of Information Technology, Pace University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Yu Lu
- Department of Information Technology, Pace University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Yubo Kou
- School of Information, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA
| | - Danny T Y Wu
- Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA
| | - Jina Huh-Yoo
- Department of Media and Information, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
| | - Zhe He
- School of Information, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA
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Rizvi RF, Wang Y, Nguyen T, Vasilakes J, Bian J, He Z, Zhang R. Analyzing Social Media Data to Understand Consumer Information Needs on Dietary Supplements. Stud Health Technol Inform 2019; 264:323-327. [PMID: 31437938 PMCID: PMC6792048 DOI: 10.3233/shti190236] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/18/2023]
Abstract
Despite the high consumption of dietary supplements (DS), few reliable, relevant, and comprehensive online resources could satisfy information seekers. This research study aims to understand consumer information needs on DS using topic modeling, and to evaluate accuracy in correctly identifying topics from social media. We retrieved 16,095 unique questions posted on Yahoo! Answers relating to 438 unique DS ingredients mentioned in sub-section, "Alternative medicine" under the section, "Health" . We implemented an unsupervised topic modeling method, Correlation Explanation (CorEx) to unveil the various topics in which consumers are most interested. We manually reviewed the keywords of all the 200 topics generated by CorEx and assigned them to 38 health-related categories, corresponding to 12 higher-level groups. We found high accuracy (90-100%) in identifying questions that correctly align with the selected topics. The results could guide us to generate a more comprehensive and structured DS resource based on consumers' information needs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rubina F. Rizvi
- Institute for Health Informatics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
- Department of Pharmaceutical Care & Health Systems, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
| | - Yefeng Wang
- Institute for Health Informatics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
| | - Thao Nguyen
- Data Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
| | - Jake Vasilakes
- Institute for Health Informatics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
- Department of Pharmaceutical Care & Health Systems, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
| | - Jiang Bian
- Department of Health Outcomes & Biomedical Informatics, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | - Zhe He
- School of Information, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
| | - Rui Zhang
- Institute for Health Informatics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
- Department of Pharmaceutical Care & Health Systems, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
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Gabarron E, Bradway M, Fernandez-Luque L, Chomutare T, Hansen AH, Wynn R, Årsand E. Social media for health promotion in diabetes: study protocol for a participatory public health intervention design. BMC Health Serv Res 2018; 18:414. [PMID: 29871675 PMCID: PMC5989446 DOI: 10.1186/s12913-018-3178-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/10/2017] [Accepted: 05/02/2018] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Participatory health approaches are increasingly drawing attention among the scientific community, and could be used for health promotion programmes on diabetes through social media. The main aim of this project is to research how to best use social media to promote healthy lifestyles with and within the Norwegian population. METHODS The design of the health promotion intervention (HPI) will be participatory, and will involve both a panel of healthcare experts and social media users following the Norwegian Diabetes Association. The panel of experts will agree on the contents by following the Delphi method, and social media users will participate in the definition of the HPI by expressing their opinions through an adhoc online questionnaire. The agreed contents between both parties to be used in the HPI will be posted on three social media channels (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) along 24 months. The 3 months before starting the HPI, and the 3 months after the HPI will be used as control data. The effect of the HPI will be assessed by comparing formats, frequency, and reactions to the published HPI messages, as well as comparing potential changes in five support-intended communication behaviours expressed on social media, and variations in sentiment analysis before vs during and after the HPI. The HPI's effect on social media users' health-related lifestyles, online health behaviours, and satisfaction with the intervention will be assessed every 6 months through online questionnaires. A separate questionnaire will be used to assess the panel of experts' satisfaction and perceptions of the benefits for health professionals of a HPI as this one. DISCUSSION The time constraints of today's medical practice combined with the piling demand of chronic conditions such as diabetes make any additional request of extra time used by health care professionals a challenge. Social media channels provide efficient, ubiquitous and user-friendly platforms that can encourage participation, engagement and action necessary from both those who receive and provide care to make health promotion interventions successful.
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Affiliation(s)
- E. Gabarron
- Norwegian Centre for E-health research, University Hospital of North Norway, Sykehusvegen 23, 9019 Tromsø, Norway
| | - M. Bradway
- Norwegian Centre for E-health research, University Hospital of North Norway, Sykehusvegen 23, 9019 Tromsø, Norway
- Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, The Arctic University of Norway, 9019 Tromsø, Norway
| | - L. Fernandez-Luque
- Qatar Computing Research Institute, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Hamad Bin Khalifa Research Complex, Education City, Doha, Qatar
| | - T. Chomutare
- Norwegian Centre for E-health research, University Hospital of North Norway, Sykehusvegen 23, 9019 Tromsø, Norway
| | - A. H. Hansen
- Department of Community Medicine, University Hospital of North Norway, 9016 Tromsø, Norway
- Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, The Arctic University of Norway, 9019 Tromsø, Norway
| | - R. Wynn
- Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, The Arctic University of Norway, 9019 Tromsø, Norway
- Division of Mental Health and Addictions, University Hospital of North Norway, 9016 Tromsø, Norway
| | - E. Årsand
- Norwegian Centre for E-health research, University Hospital of North Norway, Sykehusvegen 23, 9019 Tromsø, Norway
- Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, The Arctic University of Norway, 9019 Tromsø, Norway
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Gu H, He Z, Wei D, Elhanan G, Chen Y. Validating UMLS Semantic Type Assignments Using SNOMED CT Semantic Tags. Methods Inf Med 2018; 57:43-53. [PMID: 29621830 DOI: 10.3414/me17-01-0120] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND The UMLS assigns semantic types to all its integrated concepts. The semantic types are widely used in various natural language processing tasks in the biomedical domain, such as named entity recognition, semantic disambiguation, and semantic annotation. Due to the size of the UMLS, erroneous semantic type assignments are hard to detect. It is imperative to devise automated techniques to identify errors and inconsistencies in semantic type assignments. OBJECTIVES Designing a methodology to perform programmatic checks to detect semantic type assignment errors for UMLS concepts with one or more SNOMED CT terms and evaluating concepts in a selected set of SNOMED CT hierarchies to verify our hypothesis that UMLS semantic type assignment errors may exist in concepts residing in semantically inconsistent groups. METHODS Our methodology is a four-stage process. 1) partitioning concepts in a SNOMED CT hierarchy into semantically uniform groups based on their assigned semantic tags; 2) partitioning concepts in each group from 1) into the disjoint sub-groups based on their semantic type assignments; 3) mapping all SNOMED CT semantic tags into one or more semantic types in the UMLS; 4) identifying semantically inconsistent groups that have inconsistent assignments between semantic tags and semantic types according to the mapping from 3) and providing concepts in such groups to the domain experts for reviewing. RESULTS We applied our method on the UMLS 2013AA release. Concepts of the semantically inconsistent groups in the PHYSICAL FORCE and RECORD ARTIFACT hierarchies have error rates 33% and 62.5% respectively, which are greatly larger than error rates 0.6% and 1% in semantically consistent groups of the two hierarchies. CONCLUSION Concepts in semantically in - consistent groups are more likely to contain semantic type assignment errors. Our methodology can make auditing more efficient by limiting auditing resources on concepts of semantically inconsistent groups.
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Amith M, He Z, Bian J, Lossio-Ventura JA, Tao C. Assessing the practice of biomedical ontology evaluation: Gaps and opportunities. J Biomed Inform 2018; 80:1-13. [PMID: 29462669 PMCID: PMC5882531 DOI: 10.1016/j.jbi.2018.02.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 42] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2017] [Revised: 02/12/2018] [Accepted: 02/16/2018] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
With the proliferation of heterogeneous health care data in the last three decades, biomedical ontologies and controlled biomedical terminologies play a more and more important role in knowledge representation and management, data integration, natural language processing, as well as decision support for health information systems and biomedical research. Biomedical ontologies and controlled terminologies are intended to assure interoperability. Nevertheless, the quality of biomedical ontologies has hindered their applicability and subsequent adoption in real-world applications. Ontology evaluation is an integral part of ontology development and maintenance. In the biomedicine domain, ontology evaluation is often conducted by third parties as a quality assurance (or auditing) effort that focuses on identifying modeling errors and inconsistencies. In this work, we first organized four categorical schemes of ontology evaluation methods in the existing literature to create an integrated taxonomy. Further, to understand the ontology evaluation practice in the biomedicine domain, we reviewed a sample of 200 ontologies from the National Center for Biomedical Ontology (NCBO) BioPortal-the largest repository for biomedical ontologies-and observed that only 15 of these ontologies have documented evaluation in their corresponding inception papers. We then surveyed the recent quality assurance approaches for biomedical ontologies and their use. We also mapped these quality assurance approaches to the ontology evaluation criteria. It is our anticipation that ontology evaluation and quality assurance approaches will be more widely adopted in the development life cycle of biomedical ontologies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Muhammad Amith
- School of Biomedical Informatics, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA
| | - Zhe He
- School of Information, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
| | - Jiang Bian
- Department of Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | | | - Cui Tao
- School of Biomedical Informatics, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA.
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Vasilevsky NA, Foster ED, Engelstad ME, Carmody L, Might M, Chambers C, Dawkins HJS, Lewis J, Della Rocca MG, Snyder M, Boerkoel CF, Rath A, Terry SF, Kent A, Searle B, Baynam G, Jones E, Gavin P, Bamshad M, Chong J, Groza T, Adams D, Resnick AC, Heath AP, Mungall C, Holm IA, Rageth K, Brownstein CA, Shefchek K, McMurry JA, Robinson PN, Köhler S, Haendel MA. Plain-language medical vocabulary for precision diagnosis. Nat Genet 2018; 50:474-476. [PMID: 29632381 PMCID: PMC6258202 DOI: 10.1038/s41588-018-0096-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Nicole A Vasilevsky
- Oregon Clinical & Translational Research Institute, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA
- Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA
| | - Erin D Foster
- School of Dentistry, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA
| | - Mark E Engelstad
- School of Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA
| | - Leigh Carmody
- Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, Farmington, CT, USA
| | - Matt Might
- Undiagnosed Disease Network, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Chip Chambers
- School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Hugh J S Dawkins
- Department of Health, Government of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
| | - Janine Lewis
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Maria G Della Rocca
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Michelle Snyder
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | | | | | | | | | | | - Gareth Baynam
- Medical School, University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
| | | | - Pam Gavin
- National Organization for Rare Disorders, Quincy, MA, USA
| | - Michael Bamshad
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Jessica Chong
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Tudor Groza
- Kinghorn Centre for Clinical Genomics, Garvan Institute, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
| | - David Adams
- Undiagnosed Disease Program, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Adam C Resnick
- Center for Data-Driven Discovery in Biomedicine, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Allison P Heath
- Center for Data-Driven Discovery in Biomedicine, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Chris Mungall
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
| | - Ingrid A Holm
- Division of Genetics and Genomics, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Kayli Rageth
- Sanford Health Imagenetics, Sioux Falls, SD, USA
| | - Catherine A Brownstein
- Division of Genetics and Genomics, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Kent Shefchek
- Oregon Clinical & Translational Research Institute, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA
| | - Julie A McMurry
- Oregon Clinical & Translational Research Institute, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA
| | | | - Sebastian Köhler
- NeuroCure Cluster of Excellence, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Melissa A Haendel
- Oregon Clinical & Translational Research Institute, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA.
- Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA.
- Linus Pauling Institute, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA.
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He Z, Chen Z, Oh S, Hou J, Bian J. Enriching consumer health vocabulary through mining a social Q&A site: A similarity-based approach. J Biomed Inform 2017; 69:75-85. [PMID: 28359728 DOI: 10.1016/j.jbi.2017.03.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/17/2016] [Revised: 03/21/2017] [Accepted: 03/24/2017] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
The widely known vocabulary gap between health consumers and healthcare professionals hinders information seeking and health dialogue of consumers on end-user health applications. The Open Access and Collaborative Consumer Health Vocabulary (OAC CHV), which contains health-related terms used by lay consumers, has been created to bridge such a gap. Specifically, the OAC CHV facilitates consumers' health information retrieval by enabling consumer-facing health applications to translate between professional language and consumer friendly language. To keep up with the constantly evolving medical knowledge and language use, new terms need to be identified and added to the OAC CHV. User-generated content on social media, including social question and answer (social Q&A) sites, afford us an enormous opportunity in mining consumer health terms. Existing methods of identifying new consumer terms from text typically use ad-hoc lexical syntactic patterns and human review. Our study extends an existing method by extracting n-grams from a social Q&A textual corpus and representing them with a rich set of contextual and syntactic features. Using K-means clustering, our method, simiTerm, was able to identify terms that are both contextually and syntactically similar to the existing OAC CHV terms. We tested our method on social Q&A corpora on two disease domains: diabetes and cancer. Our method outperformed three baseline ranking methods. A post-hoc qualitative evaluation by human experts further validated that our method can effectively identify meaningful new consumer terms on social Q&A.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhe He
- School of Information, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA; Institute for Successful Longevity, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA.
| | - Zhiwei Chen
- Department of Computer Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA
| | - Sanghee Oh
- Department of Library and Information Science, Chungnam National University, South Korea
| | - Jinghui Hou
- School of Communication, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA
| | - Jiang Bian
- Department of Health Outcomes and Policy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32608, USA
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He Z, Chen Z, Bian J. Analysis of Temporal Constraints in Qualitative Eligibility Criteria of Cancer Clinical Studies. PROCEEDINGS. IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BIOINFORMATICS AND BIOMEDICINE 2016; 2016:717-722. [PMID: 29263940 PMCID: PMC5733789 DOI: 10.1109/bibm.2016.7822607] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
Clinical studies, especially randomized controlled trials, generate gold-standard medical evidence. However, the lack of population representativeness of clinical studies has hampered their generalizability to the real-world population. Overly restrictive qualitative criteria are often applied to exclude patients. In this work, we develop a lexical-pattern-based tool to structure qualitative eligibility criteria with temporal constraints, with which we analyzed over 10,800 cancer clinical studies. Our results showed that restrictive temporal constraints are often applied on qualitative criteria in cancer studies, limiting the generalizability of their results.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhe He
- School of Information, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
| | - Zhiwei Chen
- Department of Computer Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
| | - Jiang Bian
- Department of Health Outcomes and Policy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
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