Twitter as a Tool for Health Research: A Systematic Review

Abstract

We identified a new taxonomy to describe Twitter use in health research with 6 categories. Many data elements discernible from a user's Twitter profile, especially demographics, have been underreported in the literature and can provide new opportunities to characterize the users whose data are analyzed in these studies. Twitter-based health research is a growing field funded by a diversity of organizations. Public health implications. Future work should develop standardized reporting guidelines for health researchers who use Twitter and policies that address privacy and ethical concerns in social media research.

Risk and Protective Factors in the Lives of Transgender/Gender Nonconforming Adolescents

“…Findings indicate notable differences in TGNC identity across demographic groups, similar to those found by Crissman and colleagues among adults [5], with greater prevalence of TGNC identity among non-white groups and those of lower economic status. Additionally, we detected greater involvement of TGNC youth in all types of risk behaviors and lower levels of protection compared to cisgender youth.…”

“…However, from an epidemiologic perspective, this group is poorly understood, particularly its youth. The first national prevalence estimates of transgender adults in the U.S. were recently published (0.4%–0.6% of the adult population [5–7]). Using estimates from adults, the Williams Institute has estimated a prevalence of 0.7% of transgender youth among 13–17 year olds, but concludes that refined estimates will depend on new survey data with appropriate assessment of gender identity [7].…”

Enhancing accrual to clinical trials of adolescents and young adults with cancer

“…Recruitment through social media has been successful for other diseases and a number of papers highlight social media as a potential recruitment method . Conversely, recruitment by social media was not successful for this population and Cantrell et al .…”

Aperçu - Que révèlent les médias sociaux au sujet de la crise des opioïdes au Canada?

“…Les médias sociaux ont déjà été utilisés pour obtenir des données sur certaines questions urgentes en santé publique [9][10][11][12] . Des études antérieures ont utilisé les médias sociaux pour faire le suivi épidémi-ologique de maladies et sonder les réac-tions du public sur certains efforts de promotion de la santé [6][7][8] .…”