Transcript
Part 3: Use of Social Media in Health-Related Research
Created by: Stephanie Cullen-Conroy, ThevakiKulendran RD, Jessica Rego,
Stephanie Ruggieri RD, Andrea Starr
Stephanie:
Welcome to this series on Social Media Use for Canadian dietitians. This series was created by the Masters of Health Science in Nutrition Communication graduate students.
This video is on the use of social media in health-related research, which is part 3 in this series.My name is Stephanie.
Jessica:
And my name is Jessica, and today we’ll be presenting this content and guiding you through this video.
Stephanie:
There are two learning objectives:
First, we’ll learn about why social media is used in health-related research, including its accessibility, feasibility, specificity, and timeliness.
Second, we will discuss how social media is used in health-related research, including participant recruitment, implementing interventions, secondary data analysis, and dissemination.
There are several reasons why social media platforms would be used in health-related research.
For a more detailed description on social media, visit part 1 of this series.
First, accessibility. Social media allows you to access and connect with your target audience, regardless of their location.
Second, feasibility. It is cost-effective; as platforms are free and easy to sign up with.
Third, specificity. You can select the social media platform based on its functionality. Specific platforms can be used to target specific populations.
And fourth, timely. Social media is a current and efficient way of communicating information.
Social media can be described as a tree with endless branches of opportunity. For the remainder of this presentation, we will focus on specific branches regarding how to use social media in health research.
Jessica:
There are many ways social media platforms are used in health-related research.
Social media can be used in 4 distinct ways:
Participant recruitment, implementing interventions, secondary data analysis,and dissemination.
First, social media can be used to recruit participants.
Recruitment happens when participants are collected for a study. The study design and methods discuss the process and criteria for collecting participants.
In a study conducted in 2014, participants were recruited using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Tumblr.
Using Facebook, the researchers used paid advertisements, fan pages, personal messages, and postings in groups.
Using Twitter, researchers followed any organization affiliated with their topic of interest, which was HIV and AIDS. They also followed individuals openly tweeting about HIV and AIDS and re-tweeted related posts.
The survey link was tweeted with a request to followers to spread the message by retweeting the link. They also used hashtags to track how many times the survey link was sent.
Using Linkedin, the researchers posted the study link in groups related to HIV. They also requested members to share the studylink.
Using Tumblr, the researchers created a blog with posts similar to their Facebook account, and “liked” blogs with HIV content to encourage recruitment.
Through this multi-platform recruitment process, the researchers concluded that social media recruitment is a feasible and efficient tool.
Social media can be used in the implementation of intervention-based research.
Intervention-based research involves measuring and comparing similar groups exposed to different treatments.
One group receives the intervention. This is the experimental group.
And one group does not receive the intervention. This is the control group.
In a study conducted in 2012, the researchers used Facebook to host a physical activity intervention for participants.
A Facebook group was hosted and moderated by the researchers as a means to exchange social support, ask questions, and encourage increased physical activity.
Researchers measured perceived social support for physical activity and self-reported physical activity using their website before and after the intervention.
The study found that participants in the intervention group experienced increases in social support and physical activity over time.
In addition to collecting primary data,, social media information can be used for secondary data analysis.
Secondary data analysis is the analysis of pre-existing data.
In a study conducted in 2015, tweets of meals and snacks were used to analyze consumer behaviour.
The researchers used software to connect to Twitter and identify relevant tweets.
Data analysis identified that people tweeted about enjoyable food experiences and meals away from home. Researchers concluded that tweets are posted when eating situations are different from normal habits.
Researchers concluded that twitter was effective for secondary data analysis.
Academic journals, conference proceedings, and edited books are the most widely used channels for disseminating health-related research. However, researchers are relying more on social media as a complementary activity to share findings.
Dissemination, is the process of circulating information to people.
On this slide, we have an example of a tweet about a recent study on Vitamin D.
And on this slide, we have an example of a post on the Canadian Foundation for Dietetic Research facebook page sharing findings of a study examining teenagers and food insecurity.
Some studies are now show the “tweetations” of their research -- which is how many times the link to their study has been tweeted.
In summary, the examples reviewed demonstrate how social media can be used in four different branches of health-related research.
Stephanie:
From this presentation, we hope you now understand why and how social media is used in health-related research.
Social media is used for its accessibility, feasibility, specificity, and timeliness.
Researchers use social media for participant recruitment, implementing interventions, secondary data analysis, and dissemination.
Thanks for watching!
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