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| Developing a method for studying online health information sharing over social media | |
|---|---|
| Investigator (PI): | Chambers, Christine |
| Performing Organization (PO): |
(Current): Dalhousie University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics / (902) 470-8229 |
| Supporting Agency (SA): | Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation |
| Initial Year: | 2015 |
| Final Year: | 2016 |
| Record Source/Award ID: | NSHRF/10089 |
| Funding: | Total Award Amount: $14,708 |
| Award Type: | Grant |
| Abstract: | The public is increasingly using social media for communication on health topics. Unfortunately, the type and quality of content being shared is not known. There is a risk that inaccurate health information could be shared and influence health decisions. Take, for example, the current health controversy about vaccine safety. Despite solid research showing the efficacy and safety of vaccines, considerable current online discussion and sharing is not based in evidence, and may have led to outbreaks of preventable diseases. The goal of this research is to develop, apply, and evaluate a method for studying the type and content of health-related social media posts. This work represents an emerging collaboration between leading Nova Scotia researchers in child health (Drs. Chambers and Corkum) and social media and information management (Drs. Howard and Gruzd) and engages a trainee (Tougas). Given the team's child health research expertise, this project will focus on two specific areas, pediatric pain and pediatric sleep, but has the potential to be applied to many other areas. Specifically we will 1) apply systematic review methodology to searching social media posts about pediatric pain and sleep; 2) identify and categorize themes in social media posts related to pediatric pain and sleep; 3) analyze user interactions with content within and across social media platforms; and 4) evaluate the content of social media posts in relation to research evidence in pediatric pain and sleep. We will conduct this work using a two-stage approach. First we will apply and evaluate our method for social media posts on pediatric pain. Then we will refine our method and apply to posts on pediatric sleep. Two independent reviewers will search text-based social media platforms (i.e., Facebook and Twitter) using keywords related to pediatric pain and pediatric sleep. The theme of each post will be categorized and extracted. We will use Netlytic, a cloud-based text and social networks analyzer that can automatically summarize and discover social networks from online conversations on social media sites. Frequencies of categories will be reported and compared across platforms. Descriptive statistics of user metrics from each platform (number of views, likes, shares, ratings) will be reported. Content of the posts will be compared to evidence-based research to identify the quality of shared information on social media and identify existing gaps. This work is important as it will develop an innovative method to describe health-related social media posts, examine how information is being shared over social media, and identify misrepresented health information online. It brings together an interdisciplinary group of Nova Scotian researchers. We plan to build on this work in a larger scale grant application to CIHR that will allow us to study the nature and quality of online information about a range of health topics across the lifespan, including other Nova Scotian health research strengths (e.g., obesity, autism). Furthermore, this work will also help us to establish a baseline against which we can evaluate the effectiveness of e-health interventions to mobilize research evidence about child health to the public. |
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| Country: | Canada |
| State: | Nova Scotia |
| Zip Code: | B3K 6R8 |
| UI: | 20161264 |
| Project Status: | Completed |