[Press release] Can social media help stop the spread of HIV?

Pinmap of Tweets Related to HIV

Caption: This is a map showing the origins of tweets related to HIV.

Credit: Sean Young

Usage Restrictions: Credit required.
[Sean Young, Center for Digital Behavior at the University of California,
http://www.uclahealth.org/main.cfm?id=2341, scroll down for short bio]

 

From the 30 October 2014 UCLA press release

In addition to providing other potential benefits to public health, all of those tweets and Facebook posts could help curb the spread of HIV.

Although public health researchers have focused early applications of social media on reliably monitoring the spread of diseases such as the flu, Sean Young of the Center for Digital Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles, writes in an October 29th article in the Cell Press journal Trends in Microbiology of a future in which social media might predict and even change biomedical outcomes.

“We know that mining social media will have huge potential benefits for many areas of medicine in the future, but we’re still in the early stages of testing how powerful these technologies will be,” Young said.

With the right tools in place, he says, social media offers a rich source of psychological and health-related data generated in an environment in which people are often willing to share freely.

His recent work on Behavioral Insights on Big Data (BIBD) for HIV offers the tantalizing possibility that insights gleaned from social media could be used to help governments, public health departments, hospitals, and caretakers monitor people’s health behaviors “to know where, when, and how we might be able to prevent HIV transmission.”

Young details a social-media-based intervention in which African American and Latino men who have sex with men shared a tremendous amount of personal information through social media, including when or whether they had ‘come out,’ as well as experiences of homelessness and stigmatization. What’s more, they found that people who discussed HIV prevention topics on social media were more than twice as likely to later request an HIV test.

In the context of HIV prevention, tweets have also been shown to identify people who are currently or soon to engage in sexual- or drug-related risk behaviors. Those tweets can be mapped to particular locations and related to actual HIV trends.

What’s needed now is the updated infrastructure and sophisticated toolkits to handle all of those data, Young said, noting that there are about 500 million communications sent every day on Twitter alone. He and a team of University of California computer scientists are working to meet that challenge now.

Although privacy concerns about such uses of social media shouldn’t be ignored, Young says there is evidence that people have already begun to accept such uses of social media, even by corporations looking to boost profits.

“Since people are already getting used to the fact that corporations are doing this, we should at least support public health researchers in using these same methods to try and improve our health and well being,” he said. “We’re already seeing increased support from patients and public health departments.”

Study shows how social media engages people with chronic diseases

Study shows how social media engages people with chronic diseases.

From the 27 October 2013 ScienceDaily article

Using Facebook chats to convey health information is becoming more common. A study at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in New York City set out to find the best way to boost participation in the chats to raise awareness of lupus, an autoimmune disease.

…

Specifically, investigators at HSS wanted to see if collaboration with a community-based lupus organization would increase patient awareness and participation. They found that the number of people participating in the chat tripled when the hospital joined forces with the S.L.E. Lupus Foundation to publicize the chat.

…

“The Facebook chats provide a new venue to get information from rheumatologists and other health professionals who understand this complex disease. Lupus patients are hungry for information, and with social media, we can address their specific concerns in real time,” said Jane Salmon, M.D., director of the Lupus Center of Excellence and senior author of the study.

…

“The Facebook chats provide a new venue to get information from rheumatologists and other health professionals who understand this complex disease. Lupus patients are hungry for information, and with social media, we can address their specific concerns in real time,” said Jane Salmon, M.D., director of the Lupus Center of Excellence and senior author of the study.

Read the entire article here

Related articles

• Study Shows How Social Media Engages People with Chronic Diseases
• Great Blog I Found!

 

[Press release] Awkward Facebook Encounters

Facebook Notifications Management (Mark as Spam!) (Photo credit: @superamit)

AWKWARD FACEBOOK ENCOUNTERS
Embarrassing Facebook posts cause certain people more anguish than others

From the 9 December 2013 Northwestern State University press release

EVANSTON, Ill. — A friend posts a picture on Facebook that shows you picking food out of your teeth. Awkward!

Such Facebook faux pas are common. But depending on who you are and to whom you allow access to your Facebook page, such embarrassments can cause greater anguish, according to a new Northwestern University study.

“Almost every participant in the study could describe something that happened on Facebook in the past six months that was embarrassing or made them feel awkward or uncomfortable,” said Jeremy Birnholtz, one of the authors of the paper. “We were interested in the strength of the emotional response to this type of encounter.”

People most concerned about social appropriateness (high self monitors) and those with a diverse network of friends on Facebook — who allow access to co-workers, clients and friends, for example — are more likely to strongly experience a “face threat,” the study found. Whereas people who felt they had a high level of Facebook skills reported experiencing these kinds of threats less severely.

“Perhaps people with more Facebook experience, who know how to control settings, delete pictures and comments and untag, think they knew how to deal with these encounters or at least try to deal with them,” Birnholtz said.

Birnholtz is an assistant professor in the department of communication studies at Northwestern and director of the Social Media Lab at Northwestern. The paper will be presented in February 2014, the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing in Baltimore.

Interestingly, people with a high level of general Internet skills — who may understand the importance of online reputations — also reported more severe reactions to face threats, Birnholtz noted.

These are the type of violations or threats people in this study reported experiencing most often:

• Norm violations: This is the most common type of threat study participants reported experiencing (45 percent) and involves situations when social norms are violated and one’s behavior is exposed in a way that could lead to social and emotional consequences.
• Ideal self-presentation violations: This is the second most common threat reported (29 percent) and involves ideal self-presentation violations, when content posted is inconsistent with the manner in which a person wants to appear to his or her Facebook audience.
• Association effects: These threats are a little less common (21 percent) and involve people worrying about their self-presentation because of how someone they associate with on Facebook is presenting himself.
• Aggregate effects: This is the least common threat (5 percent) and it occurs when an individual’s content gains higher visibility within his or her network as more people like it or comment on it. The unexpected attention can cause one to feel self-conscious about their self-presentation.

For the study, researchers recruited Facebook users through university websites and Craigslist. Only 15 of the 165 people surveyed had not experienced some kind of face threat in the past six months.

Participants were asked to describe a recent uncomfortable Facebook experience and rate the severity of the threat on a scale of one to five. Information about their personality type, Internet and Facebook skills, size and diversity of their Facebook network was also collected and assessed.

Examples of awkward Facebook encounters from the study follow:

• Norm violation: “I went to a concert with a friend. I had to miss a mandatory meeting to be there … the friend didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to be going so tagged me in a status saying I was at the venue. My meeting friends found out and were super angry.”
• Ideal self-presentation violation: “I felt uncomfortable when my boyfriend posted an article about condoms on my Facebook wall … my mom reads my Facebook, and I didn’t want her to see that (even though she knows we are sexually active).”
• Association effects: “A friend posted a link to an image that she thought was funny on my wall…I was slightly embarrassed because I did not find the image funny and I was worried about how my other Facebook friends would think of me for having the link on my wall. I did not want my other Facebook friends to think that I was the type of person to find the image funny.”
• Aggregate effects: “A friend of mine commented on a picture I forgot I had posted of me with my ex-boyfriend and it showed in the newsfeed.”

Future research may focus on the specific actions people take to resolve face-threatening acts, Birnholtz said. In the meantime, people should think twice about a friend’s Facebook audience before commenting on their content or posting to their page, he said.

“People can make bad decisions when posting to your Facebook because they don’t have a good idea of your privacy settings and which friends of yours might see this content,” Birnholtz said. “Facebook doesn’t provide a lot of cues as to how friends want to present themselves to their audience.”

He said in the future Facebook could offer more pop-ups and nudges to help people think twice before posting a possible “threat” to a friend’s page.

This work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation (IIS-0915081 and DGE-0824162).

Other authors of this paper are Eden Litt and Madeline E. Smith of Northwestern University and Erin Spottswood and Jeff Hancock of Cornell University.

 

Related articles

• Embarrassing Facebook posts cause certain people more anguish than others (psypost.org)
• Embarrassing Facebook Posts may Create Problems for Others: Study (scienceworldreport.com)
• 11 Reasons You Still Like Facebook (But Are Too Embarrassed To Admit) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Facebook Might Be Adding A “Sympathize Button” For Your Friends With Awkward Rants (elitedaily.com)

Facebook medical advice isn’t what’s best for your child

From the 29 July 2013 KevinMD.com article

COURTNEY SCHMIDT, PHARMD | SOCIAL MEDIA | JULY 29, 2013

It happens about once a week. As I scroll through Facebook and peruse the latest happenings, I notice that someone (usually a mom of small children, like me) has posed a question to their Facebook friends about some type of health dilemma.

“Little Sally is cutting teeth, and she’s miserable. What can I give her to make her feel better?”

“Johnny has such a bad cough, and he can barely breathe. Anyone used Vick’s Vaporub on a baby before?”

“Took  Sam for his 4-month checkup today. Dr. says I should wait to start giving him baby food until 6 months, but I feel like he’s ready. Any moms have some advice?”

I’ve seen each of these health concerns voiced on Facebook along with many others. Various friends weigh in with their tidbits of advice or personal experience, and usually the mom will choose from those options and then report back about how that advice worked.

Here’s the problem: all health information isn’t created equal.

And crowdsourcing for medical advice isn’t likely to result in the best outcome for your child.

Although the Facebook community recommended several products for Sally’s mom to try to ease teething pain, they were likely unaware that many of these products are no longer recommended for infants because of serious health risks associated with their use.

While Johnny’s mom’s Facebook friends offered enthusiastic support for rubbing Vick’s VapoRub on his chest, feet, and even putting it under his nose, they didn’t know that this product can be harmful to children under two years of age.

Read the entire article here (which includes great Web sites for child health/medical information)

Related resources

• Caring for Your Baby and Young Child, 5th Edition: Birth to Age 5. Author: The American Academy of Pediatrics
• My Child Is Sick! Expert Advice for Managing Common Illnesses and Injuries. Author: Barton D. Schmitt, MD, FAAP
• Healthychildren.org
• Familydoctor.org includes health information for the whole family
• KidsHealth provides information about health, behavior, and development from before birth through the teen years.

Healthcare Implications for Facebook’s New “Graph Search” Functionality

From the 16th January 2013 Pixels&Pills article by @Spitz

…

Why “Graph Search”?

Analogous to Google the search king trying to enter the social space with Google Plus, Facebook the social queen is now trying to capture the search space with Graph Search. The Holy Grail is actually neither search nor social per se, but increased digital user engagement that ultimately translates to higher revenue for these providers.

…

What is “Graph Search”?

Before we can talk about implications, we need to understand what it does. Since beta isn’t released as of this posting, all we can go by is what Zuck shared during his presentation of the functionality. Specifically, a blue bar will run across the top with an entry field. Instead of typing in simple keywords, the expectation will be to type in whole questions regarding friends and friend preferences—more like Wolfram Alpha than Google.

For example, a user would type in “Do I have any friends renting apartments in Chicago?” or “Did any of my friends see LIFE OF PI yet?” or “What do my friends think about Muir Woods in San Francisco?” Graph Search will then analyze the mountains of interconnected and tagged data throughout the user’s own network, and produce responses that, according to Zuckerberg, aren’t links, but informative pieces of content in the form of posts, pics, movies, and the like. Search results will mostly likely be sharable with friends, since why not, that’s what Facebook does best….

…

What does “Graph Search” mean for Health and Healthcare?

Ah, now here’s the rub. If you’ve been following this harangue so far, then yellow and red digital health lights should already be flashing. Not much imagination is required to wonder what will happen when a user types in, for example “What do my friends think about HIV?” or “Do any of my friends have erectile dysfunction?” or “Have any of my friends had a bad reaction to taking Drug X?” “What do you think about Dr. Y?” “How was your stay at hospital Z?” If you’re a pharmaceutical or medical device manufacturer regulatory attorney, or a hospital admin, or even a patient who wants to keep things very personal, I bet you’re experiencing a mild myocardial by now…

Facebook stressed that Graph Search will only access individual friend content and public domain data through Bing. But from a healthcare point of view, that doesn’t help much at all. The reason is that in digital what’s being shared is sometimes secondary to how it’s shared…

…

So what should you, as a digital health expert, do?
If you’re a pharma or device marketer with content already on Facebook, double-check compliance, and get comfortable with bits and pieces potentially becoming aggregated outside the context of where they appear. (Red flags for fair balance information, obviously.) If you’re a hospital or private practice physician, be mindful that having patient FB friends might mean that your interactions could become more readily accessible to your patient’s entire friend network. The open door is now spinning wildly, further reinforcing the maxim that you should only post on Facebook (and any social channel) that which you are perfectly comfortable indiscriminately sharing with the world.

 

Read the entire article here

 

Related articles

• 10 Things We Learned From Facebook’s Graph Search (mashable.com)
• Get Your First Look at Facebook’s Intuitive Graph Search Here (vikitech.com)
• Facebook Graph Search, Search Quality, and the Meaning of Like (virante.org)
• Facebook Graph Search: You can run but you can’t hide (themoderatevoice.com)
• Wherever you go, FB’s Graph Search follows – Daily News & Analysis (dnaindia.com)
• What Facebook’s New Graph Search Means For Your Privacy (mashable.com)
• Graph search skepticism | Quomodocumque (quomodocumque.wordpress.com)
• Google boss: Facebook ‘doing a really bad job’ (telegraph.co.uk)
• Facebook Graph Beta Offers Multidimensional Social Search, New Networking Capabilities (socialmediatoday.com)

 

Like It or Not, Facebook and Friends Can Be Used to Influence Health Behavior

From the 5th July 2012 article at Science News Daily

Most people call it the “art” of persuasion, but public health researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) are trying to pinpoint the “science” behind social influence….

…

Valente, whose research focuses on social networks and influence, has compiled a collection of methods that public health advocates use to stimulate changes in behavior and explains why certain methods may be more effective than others in particular situations. The analysis appears in the July 6 edition of the peer-reviewed journal Science, the world’s leading outlet for scientific news, commentary and research.

Due to the large number of interventions available to researchers — Valente identifies 24, each with at least several variations — the researcher says a more robust framework is needed for deciding which tactics are best used in particular settings.

Word-of-mouth interventions, for example, depend on the social network to succeed. In some cases, word of mouth is used to spread the word and in other cases to create groups of like-minded friends.

“Existing evidence indicates that network interventions are quite effective,” Valente writes. “Yet, the science of how networks can be used to accelerate behavior change and improve organizational performance is still in its infancy. Research is clearly needed to compare different network interventions to determine which are optimal under what circumstances.”

Valente notes that behavioral research is often used in marketing and business arenas; the public health sector is just beginning to implement that information as tools like Facebook and Twitter have made it easier to collect data and spread information, he says…

Related articles

• Like it or not, Facebook and friends can be used to influence health behavior (eurekalert.org)
• “Identifying Influential and Susceptible Members of Social Networks” – Science Mag (brain4biz.wordpress.com)
• The ABC’s of Converting Social Media Into Word-of-Mouth Marketing (openforum.com)
• Identifying, Understanding and Influencing Social Media Users [Infographic] (mindjumpers.com)
• Women’s Facebook Recommendations Spur More Likes From Men – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
• Jure Klepic: Paradox of Online Influence (huffingtonpost.com)
• The Democratization of Social Influence (forbes.com)

More health departments nationwide embracing social media: Use of tools rises

From the Nation’s Health (May/June 2012)

From a Boston campaign that uses online videos to talk to teens about sugary drink consumption to an oversized Louisiana stork who reaches out via Facebook and Twitter about healthy pregnancies, health departments around the nation are embracing social media as a new way to connect with the public.

Social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube offer health professionals the ability to deliver public health messages — from common-sense guidance to critical information during an emergency — directly and quickly. Because of its low cost and ease of use, more and more health departments are becoming involved in social media, with some campaigns earning both recognition and avid followers…..

Related articles

• Physicians Leveraging Social Media to Educate Patients (bjconquest.com)

Can an App a Day Keep the Doctor Away? (2010 closing interactive panel of the National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media)

This 68 minute video touches on aspects of digital health and wellness in its broadest sense.
(The actual discussions start around the 10 minute mark after introductions, overviews, etc)

Panelists

Jay Bernhardt, PhD

MPH (Moderator)

James Andrews;

“e-Patient Dave” deBronkart

Bradford W. Hesse, PhD

Dana Lewis

This discussion of  application and use of computers, information, and communication technology to all aspects of health includes

• Health promotion and prevention, disease prevention
• Healthcare and self-care and disease management
• The systems which underlie all this work
• e-health, m-health, ihealth

Discussion questions…

•  Are we in a health care technology revolution or evolution? (with themes as patient empowerment, health care organization & structures)
  Are tools as email
• Are patients empowered? Do they know they can ask questions and do they? And will this cause health institutions to adapt to empowered patients?
• How is social media enabling advocacy? (as Twitter)
• 39  billion is predicted to be spent on digital health, how will this affect the digital health revolution/evolution?
• How can the current information centered paradigm (for accounting and billing systems) be reconciled with the evolving patient centered paradigm (for empowerment)
• Search engine optimization in health, is it possible? relationship to social media as Facebook
• Twitter and Facebook searches beginning to outnumber search engines, what does this mean for health?
• “Infomercials” by panelists
  • Trust in physicians is rising because (not in spite of) internet.. physicians are explaining Web-based material patients are bringing in
    HINTS – Health Information National Trends Survey (an open source survey from the US National Cancer Institute)
    call for items from 2010-2014
  • Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is changing what is being done in health care because prevention is a focus of this law. This act is driving the use of technologies so people can be better informed about their health and make better decisions.
    Informatics for Consumer Health ” focuses on a coordination of health information, technology, and health care delivery that empowers providers to manage care and increases the ability of consumers to gain mastery over their own health. This may be accomplished by promoting the use of information technology and communication between health care providers and their patients to share vital medical information across clinical settings in timely and reliable ways, and utilize electronic tools to achieve these objectives.”
  • Everywhere – a company which helps clients manage social media, build social media content and communities, and  integrate a social media campaign into an existing communications strategy.
    • Participation is the new marketing because the audience, target populations are creating content and are  more empowered; transparency and authenticity are now hallmarks of organizations
    • UStream to create a television station (Jane Fonda conference had 26,000 people around the world exercising at the same time)
    • [at 44:05] Five Tips on Building Community (Using Social Media)
      • Be humble (you’re a participant, not an owner
      •  Learn to use the new telephone
      • Less selling and more engaging
      • Not what you say but what they say that counts
      •  Be interesting (don’t be afraid to take chances with the new social media)
  • Social Media and Health Care is happening everywhere, HIPPA does not hamper this
  • • Surgery videos can raise awareness thru included commentaries on prevention, treatment options, etc
    • hashtags in Twitter are useful for conversing, getting questions answered, sharing, crowdsourcing as #hscm
  • e-Patient Dave
  • • patients are the most underutilized resource in our healthcare system
    • patient community as treatment option source
    • white paper 62 minutes
    • lethal lag time of 2-5 years
    • AHRQ..what kinds of appt, questions to ask

Related articles

• Is Health Care the Last to get on the Social Media Bus? (jcswoopsocialmedia.wordpress.com)
• Liking and Yelping and Tweeitng for Health Care (oh my!) (travel4health.wordpress.com)
• APMA President to Discuss Preventative Care and Reducing Health Care Costs at National Labor and Management Conference (prweb.com)

Infographic: How Social Media affects our Brain?

 

From the 13 December blog posting at Assisted Living Today
   http://assistedlivingtoday.com/p/resources/social-media-is-ruining-our-minds-infographic/ 

Social media use across the globe has exploded. As more and more people flock to social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus, it’s becoming clear that social media is having a profound effect on not just our lives but on our brains too. Scientists are researching how social media impacts cognitive functions and development, like multitasking skills, our ability (or inability) to focus, how our brains are getting rewired,  to name a few. All of which appear to be drastically affected by social media participation. To help shed more light on this phenomenon, we’ve created this infographic: “How Social Media is Ruining Our Minds.” We encourage you to share it on your favorite social media sites (ironic, huh?). You also can embed the infographic on your website using the code below. We ask only that you credit us, Assisted Living Today the leader in finding top assisted living facilities, as the source.

 

As Facebook Aims at Millions of Users, Some Are Content to Sit Out – NYTimes.com

 

Image via Wikipedia

As Facebook Aims at Millions of Users, Some Are Content to Sit Out – NYTimes.com

From the New York Times article

Tyson Balcomb quit Facebook after a chance encounter on an elevator. He found himself standing next to a woman he had never met — yet through Facebook he knew what her older brother looked like, that she was from a tiny island off the coast of Washington and that she had recently visited the Space Needle in Seattle.

“I knew all these things about her, but I’d never even talked to her,” said Mr. Balcomb, a pre-med student in Oregon who had some real-life friends in common with the woman. “At that point I thought, maybe this is a little unhealthy.”

As Facebook prepares for a much-anticipated public offering, the company is eager to show off its momentum by building on its huge membership: more than 800 million active users around the world, Facebook says, and roughly 200 million in the United States, or two-thirds of the population.

But the company is running into a roadblock in this country. Some people, even on the younger end of the age spectrum, just refuse to participate, including people who have given it a try….

Read the entire New York Times article

Related articles

• As Facebook Aims at Millions of Users, Some Are Content to Sit Out – Jenna Wortham via NYTimes.com (stoweboyd.com)
• As Facebook Aims at Millions of Users, Some Are Content to Sit Out – Jenna Wortham via NYTimes.com (underpaidgenius.com)
• Small-Town Gossip Moves to the Web, Anonymous and Vicious – NYTimes.com (grandrondepost.wordpress.com)
• Facebook Aims to Prevent Suicide (per1ph3ry.wordpress.com)
• Please Stop Sharing: A Tweet (Or More) Too Far – NYTimes.com (mbcalyn.com)
• Facebook Aims to Simplify Privacy Settings (alchemicgorilla.com)
• Facebook aims to help prevent suicides with ‘chat’ service (ctv.ca)

Private chats become the new suicide hotline on Facebook — VentureBeat

 

 

Author’s comment….

A few years back I was in a Yahoo chat room conversing with someone who suddenly started talking about his suicidal thoughts.
Very quickly I was able to get ahold of a suicide hotline number and pass it on to him. He thanked me and left the room.
To this day I think about him, wondering if he called, and if he is OK……

 

Private chats become the new suicide hotline on Facebook 

From the 15 December 2011 Forbes article

Facebook unveiled a suicide prevention tool to give users a direct link to online counselors, illustrating the social network’s efforts to expand its role in responding to crises.

With the feature, friends can report suspected suicidal behavior by clicking a button next to any piece of content on Facebook. Users select “suicidal content” under the harmful behavior menu, prompting Facebook to email a direct link to the distressed user for a private online chat with a crisis representative from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

The tool provides help to those who may not be comfortable picking up the phone or seeking other direct avenues for assistance.

The concerned friends, whose reporting of the behavior will be anonymous, will also receive a message that the issue is being addressed, according to Facebook, which will offer the tool for users in the U.S. and Canada.

The tool formalizes Facebook’s past assistance to users in times of distress. This summer, a Florida woman reportedly used Facebook to call for help after breaking her leg, and Facebook helped a Tennessee woman without a phone contact police after a robbery, illustrating the growing role social networks play in public safety.

In addition to these anecdotal uses, Facebook has been pursuing official ways the social network can help those in natural disasters and other crises….

…

The role Facebook played likely prompted the Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, to explore how social media can help in federal efforts to help prepare and deal with such emergencies.

The HHS is developing a text message service that local authorities can broadcast to inform people during emergencies.

Related articles

• Facebook Offers Suicide Chat Hotline (forbes.com)
• Private chats become the new suicide hotline on Facebook (venturebeat.com)
• Facebook Provides First-of-a-Kind Service to Help Prevent Suicides (aa47.wordpress.com)
• Now You Can Report Suicidal Behavior To Facebook (businessinsider.com)
• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Teams Up with Facebook to… (psychcentral.com)
• Facebook launches new suicide alert button (seattlepi.com)
• Facebook launches new suicide alert button (sfgate.com)
• Facebook, Your Cell Phone Would Like You Not To Kill Yourself (sfist.com)
• Facebook, Google taking on social causes (vator.tv)
• Now You Can Report Suicidal Behaviors On Facebook To Help A Friend (psfk.com)
• Facebook doesn’t want you to kill yourself (canada.com)
• National Guard, Reservists Peer-to-Peer Hotline Unveiled (offthebase.wordpress.com)

Ethics Forum Speaker KevinMD: Social Media Gives Doctors a Voice

http://blog.massmed.org/index.php/2011/11/ethics-forum-speaker-kevinmd-social-media-gives-doctors-a-voice/

Posted on November 9th, 2011 by Erica Noonan

We recently caught up with Dr. Kevin Pho, MD, a Boston University-trained internist now practicing in Nashua, NH.  His website, KevinMD.com, is one of the Internet’s top sites for physician commentary and news.

Dr. Pho is a featured speaker at the Massachusetts Medical Society’s Ethics Forum,“Social Media and Medicine: the Impact on Your Patients, Your Practice, and You,” onFriday, Dec. 2, 2011, from 3:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.

MMS:  Why should physicians get involved with social media?

Dr. Pho: We know that social media is important to patients. A Pew study says that 8 out of 10 of Internet users are online looking for medical information, but only 25 percent of them check the source of what they find. There is lots of bad information out there. I’ll be making the case for doctors to be online, guiding patients to good information.

Another reason is that social media is gives doctors a voice in national debates they didn’t have 5 or 10 years ago.  With these (social media) platforms, we can introduce topics we think are important to a wide audience.

MMS: Many doctors say they just don’t feel comfortable with social media sharing sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Dr. Pho: Doctors need an online presence and digital footprint. Patients will be looking for them online, and gone are the days where they will be using the phone book. I tell people, you really need to control your own social media presence….

Related item

Using Social Media For Practicing Evidence Based Medicine  Cochrane Social Media Workshop 2011 (slideshare presentation)

Misleading information on health social sites (and tips on how to evaluate health/medical information)

http://www.shockmd.com/2008/09/05/youre-never-to-old-to-learn-computer-skills/

 

 

From the Science Intelligence and InfoPros site

Social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube can be powerful platforms to deliver and receive healthcare information, especially for patients and caregivers who are increasingly going online to connect and share experiences with others with similar medical issues or concerns. However, these sites may lack patient-centered information and can also be sources of misleading information that could potentially do more harm than good, according to the results of two separate social media-related studies…
Medical News Today: 1st of November, 2011.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/236877.php
iHealthBeat:
http://m.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2011/11/1/researchers-say-online-health-information-could-be-misleading.aspx

 

 

And, of course, when looking for or evaluating health information….it is always a good idea to consult with a healthcare professional and/or a professional librarian.

At the very least… evaluate the information objectively!

 

 

Related articles and Web sites

How to evaluate medical and health information

• Evaluating Internet health information (Penn State)
• Evaluating Medical Research Findings and Clinical Trials (Family Caregiver Alliance)
• A Consumer’s Guide to Taking Charge of Health Information (Harvard Center for Risk Alliance)
• Evaluating Health Information on the Internet (National Cancer Institute)
• Quackwatch: Your Guide to Quackery, Health Fraud, and Intelligent Decisions (Stephen Barrett, M.D.)

Great starting places for quality health and medical information

• MedlinePlus (US National Library of Medicine/National Institutes of Health)
  Links to information on over 700 diseases/conditions, drugs & supplements, videos & tools (as health calculators, anatomy     videos, directories (as Find an Eye Doctor), and links to organizations

• UpToDate For Patients
  Click on the Patient Information tab to find free information written for patients. These topics help one to learn more about a medical condition, better understand management and treatment options, and have a better dialogue with health care providers. This free information is adapted from the subscription based service UpToDate (which is for and by physicians and researchers).
• US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
  Includes Health Topics A to Z, and sections  as Diseases and Conditions as  Healthy Living
• eMedicine Consumer Health
  Comprehensive continuously updated health and medical information written by physicians. Information on specific diseases/conditions includes overviews, causes, diagnosis, treatments, outlook, and additional links. Slideshows, images, pictures,medications, and quizzes.
  emedicine.com is geared towards health professionals. However it is free to all who register.

•  But Wait, There’s More!
• Online consumer health guides, as Consumer Health (University of Toledo), Consumer Health (University of Florida), Consumer Health Guide (University of California)
  Libguides are written by librarians on every subject imaginable. They are free to all.
• Never underestimate the finding power of a librarian.

Many academic and medical institutions offer at least some reference services to the general public.  Be sure to ask for a reference librarian. He or she not only has a master’s degree in Library Science, but often additional related education in health related areas.

• Consumer Health Toolkit for Library Staff  (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
• Healthy Roads Media  and other sources of quality health information in many languages and multiple formats (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
• Misleading Statistical Information in Ads: A Drug Ad Analyzed and Related Evaluation Resources(jflahiff.wordpress.com)
• Purchasing Pet Drugs Online: Buyer Beware (video) (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
• Meet e-patient Dave – a voice of patient engagement (and related resources) (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
• When PubMed searching yields few good results – 28 biomedical literature search tools evaluated (jflahiff.wordpress.com)

Webicina – free access to curated online medical resources in social media for patients and medical professionals in over 15 languages.

Webicina provides curated medical social media resources in over 80 medical topics in over 17 languages.
It is now also available through a free iPhone application and also a free Android application 

Webicina is a free resource, with entry points at the home page for medical professionals and empowered patients

The topics for medical professionals are constantly being added. At this time they include oncology, bioinformatics, dermatology, emergency medicine, genetics, nutrition, public health, and surgery.
The topics or empowered patients are also constantly being added. At this time they include allergy, sleep, diabetes, fitness, stem cells, weight loss, and transplantation.

Each topic includes Web sites in the following areas, from carefully chosen reputable sites

• News and Information
• Blogs (websites with regular entries commonly organized in a reverse chronological order)
• Podcasts (Audio files which one can download for immediate or future listening)
• Community sites (including related Facebook groups and other forums)
• Twitter and Friendfeed
• Videos
• Mobile phones (apps and software for smartphones)
• search engines (more focused than Google, Yahoo, Bing…)
• Slideshows
• Clinical resources (medical professional section only — includes clinical cases and imaging)

Wish to keep up to date with just portions of Webicina?

Check out and sign up at the PeRSSonalized Medicine page (you may have to select a language)

New Study Shows Online Dependency Increasing, Tips on Reducing Online Dependency

From the 26 July 2011 Medical News Today article

If you are reading this right now, you’re online. It is estimated that there were 2.1 billion Internet users worldwide, but what would happen if suddenly we were all unplugged and offline, back to basics if you will?

In a new survey of 1,000 people, 53% said they felt upset when they were denied access to the Internet, and 40% said they felt lonely when they were unable to log on to the World Wide Web. Participants were questioned about their attitudes towards the Internet, and were asked to go without technology for 24 hours. That meant no Facebook, Twitter, emails and text messages.

After the 24 hours were up, some volunteers compared the experience to quitting smoking or drinking, and one even described it as “having my hand chopped off.”

Read the rest of the article, including suggestions on how to reduce your dependency on the Web.

Related articles

• Does using Facebook put you at more risk elsewhere on the internet? (nakedsecurity.sophos.com)
• Facebook, Twitter users are more trusting finds study (news.bioscholar.com)
• The move towards social 2.0: mirroring our offline and online social behaviour (econsultancy.com)
• Report: Facebook Users hate the new Chat (magnaefamae.com)

Pharma on Facebook / Google+ in Medicine and Pharma?

From the 8th July Pharmaphorum blog posting by Wendy Blackburn

There’s been much discussion around the pharmaceutical industry’s use of social media, especially Facebook. Is it worth the risk for pharma to engage in this uncontrolled space? Will consumers really “like” a medication in a place where they’re more likely to play Farmville? And what options does pharma have considering Facebook’s recently-announced policy changes?…

[The post goes on to say there are at least 150 pharmaceutical related Facebook pages , including those by corporations, brands (those dedicated to a single presription drug), unbranded pages (usually centered around a condition as diabetes), and those including games and/or applications.]

[The article goes on to discuss the legalities and Facebook policies concerning comments at pharma Facebook pages.]

[Some excerpts]

…

Facebook changes the game for pharma

“Starting today, Facebook will no longer allow admins of new pharma pages to disable commenting on the content their page shares with people on Facebook,” Facebook told pharmas in a May 17 email posted by Intouch Solutions on its blog. “Pages that currently have commenting disabled will no longer have this entitlement after August 15th. Subject to Facebook’s approval, branded pages solely dedicated to a prescription drug may (continue to) have commenting functionality removed.”

– Medical Marketing & Media Magazine….

…

For companies that decide they still want to be on Facebook, there are a number of options:

1. 24/7 monitoring and moderation or a “community management” model

2. Moderation applications that place a temporary “hold” on comments prior to publication

3. Branded Facebook pages, where Facebook will still allow comment disabling

4. Personal representation or company “spokesperson”

5. Advertising

6. Word filters

Related articles

• Facebook to Let Pharma Disable Comments on Some Pages (clickz.com)
• Facebook Tells Pharma Brands They Must Allow Comments (scienceroll.com)
• Facebook Tells Pharma They Must Enable Comments – They Don’t Need Facebook for Sales, That Takes Care of Itself (ducknetweb.blogspot.com)
• Pharma and Social Media (biomed20.ucsf.edu)
• Possible Facebook Commenting Change Worries Pharma Marketers (clickz.com)
• Open access guideline for pharma about using social media: V2 (scienceroll.com)
• A Death Knell For Social Media and Pharma? (biojobblog.com)
• What impact will e-patients have on how healthcare is delivered: My interview on Pharmaphorum (scienceroll.com)
• Facebook No Longer Blocking Comments for (Most) Pharmaceutical Pages (insidefacebook.com)
• How Big Pharma Sucked Billions From Asthma Sufferers (huffingtonpost.com)
• Open-Access Social Media Guide for Pharma: Want to join? | Science … (sciencereportnow.com)
• Positive and negative examples of pharma using social media (scienceroll.com)
• Social Media in Pharma Summit starts today (medicineandtechnology.com)

Google+ in Medicine and Pharma? 

From the 14 July 2011 Science Roll item

There have been some articles and blog entries lately focusing on whether Google+ could be used in medicine or pharma. I’ve been trying to use it more actively in the past couple of days and it’s still a question for me to figure out whether I should separate my professional Facebook and Google+ activities. A few comments from fellow bloggers:

Could Google+ be Pharma’s Answer to Social Media Marketing?

“Google launched a beta version of its own social network just a couple of days ago, Google+.  While many news reports over the past day or so  suggest that Google+ offers some great features, most also suggest that the network is probably no reason for people to abandon their FaceBook page as an alternative.

However, could Google+ offer a FaceBook alternative for pharma companies?  “…..

[Click here for the rest of the Science Roll article]

Google+ is a social media site (currently in beta & for invited users only) similar to Facebook.

An introductory video, review….

Using Your Smartphone to Lose Weight (and other interesting things you can do with a smartphone)

Image via Wikipedia

From the May 5, 2011  Cornflower blog item (The Blog of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine Greater Midwest Region)

Today in Chicago, it is currently 48 degrees at 10:00 am.  Not exactly beach weather.  However, it will be soon time to take off those winter jackets and replace it with t-shirts and suntan lotion.  So, did you know you can use your smartphone to help you lose weight? (Not saying you need it! You look marvelous!) Duke University researchers are using Android smartphones and wireless weight scales for a weight loss study.  It’s not just that you connect with a scale wirelessly and it adds your weight to a chart on your phone; the app on your smartphone will keep track of your weight and depending how it is trending, send you messages.  Hopefully they aren’t messages like “lay off the cookies, Max!” Because I love cookies too much.  Anyway.  This article came out a few days ago and you may find it interesting: http://www.imedicalapps.com/2011/04/duke-researchers-android-phones-bluetooth-weight-scale/.

Sort of on the same wavelength about getting messages from your phone – there are a growing number of services that will communicate with you to remind you of appointments, to take medicines, or in the case above, maybe even give encouragement.  Some examples:

• Text4Baby (especially with Mother’s Day just around the corner!), http://text4baby.org/
  • Indiana University Health, Texting Teen Moms Proves to be a Convenient Source for Support
• Weight Management Text Messaging, http://www.muschealth.com/weightlosstools/weightmessage.htm
• CDC – Mobile at CDC, http://www.cdc.gov/mobile/
• Summa Health System (OH)- Baby’s First Text Message, http://www.summahealth.org/common/templates/article.asp?ID=18612
• ER Wait Times (IL), http://www.edward.org/body.cfm?id=1443 and one from CA, http://blog.cep.com/bid/38007/Hospital-launches-emergency-department-text-messaging-program

There is a Health Literacy Out Loud Podcast on this topic: http://www.healthliteracyoutloud.com/2011/04/26/health-literacy-out-loud-57-texting-important-health-messages/

Other developments:

• In Denver, Co, the hospital group Denver Health has teamed up with Microsoft and EMC on a project to send patients text message reminders about upcoming appointments in a diabetes program that aimed to help patients better self manage their condition.  They ask patients to text in their daily glucose readings.  They hope that this will improve condition management, reduce admission rates and reduce costs.  Read more about this project.
• Getting teens and tweens to be more complaint with eczema treatments with texting: http://www.skincarephysicians.com/eczemanet/texting.html

For more clinical research see the following:

• Text messaging for enhancement of testing and treatment for tuberculosis, human immunodeficiency virus, and syphilis: a survey of attitudes toward cellular phones and healthcare.
• Assessing the effectiveness of text messages as appointment reminders in a pediatric dental setting.
• Content of text messaging immunization reminders: What low-income parents want to know.

There’s more where these came from in PubMed.

What is your organization doing with mobile technologies? Does your hospital have ER wait times available via a mobile device? What about appointment reminders?

P.S. Don’t forget about the NLM “Show Off Your Apps” Contest! http://challenge.gov/NIH/132-nlm-show-off-your-apps-innovative-uses-of-nlm-information

P.P.S. (or is it P.S.S.?) Don’t forget about all of the mobile sites and apps available already from the NLM: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mobile/

Social Media Has Benefits And Risks For Kids

Social Media Has Benefits And Risks For Kids

From the March 28 2011 Health News Today item

While social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube bring benefits to children and teenagers, such as helping them develop communication and technical skills, they can also expose them to danger and risk, such as cyberbullying and depression, according to a new report written by American pediatricians.

The report, which appears in the April issue of Pediatrics, [free full text] the peer-reviewed, scientific journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), says doctors are in an ideal position to encourage children to use social media in a healthy way, and to help parents and families understand and engage with their use of social media while also monitoring for potential problems….

…The report does much to stress the benefits of social media, such as developing communication skills, facilitating social interaction and improving technical competence. Other benefits include helping young people find opportunities to link up with community activity like volunteering, and helping them attain a sense of identity…
…A Common Sense Media Poll in 2009 found that more than half of American teenagers log onto their favorite social media site at least once a day, while 22% do so at least ten times a day.

75% of teenagers now own cellphones, with 54% of them using them for texting, 24% for instant messaging, and 25% for social media access.

The growth of social media has been so rapid and their presence in children’s everyday life is now so pervasive, that:

“For some teens and tweens, social media is the primary way they interact socially, rather than at the mall or a friend’s house,” report co-author Dr Gwenn O’Keeffe told the press.

“Parents need to understand these technologies so they can relate to their children’s online world – and comfortably parent in that world,” urged O’Keeffe.

O’Keeffe and colleagues point out that a significant part of young people’s social and emotional development now occurs while they are using the Internet or on their cellphones.

Related Articles

• Today’s Kids Face ‘Facebook Depression’ (livescience.com)
• How Marketers Are Using Social Media to Grow (othersidegroup.com)
• NLM Director’s Comments Transcript: Kids & Social Media 05/02/2011 (US National Library of Medicine)

NIH Newsletters and Feeds

Have an urge to surf the Internet but would like it to be productive?

Consider sites from this US government Web Page

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has an ever growing list of Facebook pages, Listservs, Blogs, Twitter Accounts, Podcasts, YouTube Channels, and Vodcasts