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      The Use of Social Networking Sites for Public Health Practice and Research: A Systematic Review

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          Abstract

          Background

          Social networking sites (SNSs) have the potential to increase the reach and efficiency of essential public health services, such as surveillance, research, and communication.

          Objective

          The objective of this study was to conduct a systematic literature review to identify the use of SNSs for public health research and practice and to identify existing knowledge gaps.

          Methods

          We performed a systematic literature review of articles related to public health and SNSs using PubMed, EMBASE, and CINAHL to search for peer-reviewed publications describing the use of SNSs for public health research and practice. We also conducted manual searches of relevant publications. Each publication was independently reviewed by 2 researchers for inclusion and extracted relevant study data.

          Results

          A total of 73 articles met our inclusion criteria. Most articles (n=50) were published in the final 2 years covered by our search. In all, 58 articles were in the domain of public health research and 15 were in public health practice. Only 1 study was conducted in a low-income country. Most articles (63/73, 86%) described observational studies involving users or usages of SNSs; only 5 studies involved randomized controlled trials. A large proportion (43/73, 59%) of the identified studies included populations considered hard to reach, such as young individuals, adolescents, and individuals at risk of sexually transmitted diseases or alcohol and substance abuse. Few articles (2/73, 3%) described using the multidirectional communication potential of SNSs to engage study populations.

          Conclusions

          The number of publications about public health uses for SNSs has been steadily increasing in the past 5 years. With few exceptions, the literature largely consists of observational studies describing users and usages of SNSs regarding topics of public health interest. More studies that fully exploit the communication tools embedded in SNSs and study their potential to produce significant effects in the overall population’s health are needed.

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          Most cited references97

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          Detecting influenza epidemics using search engine query data.

          Seasonal influenza epidemics are a major public health concern, causing tens of millions of respiratory illnesses and 250,000 to 500,000 deaths worldwide each year. In addition to seasonal influenza, a new strain of influenza virus against which no previous immunity exists and that demonstrates human-to-human transmission could result in a pandemic with millions of fatalities. Early detection of disease activity, when followed by a rapid response, can reduce the impact of both seasonal and pandemic influenza. One way to improve early detection is to monitor health-seeking behaviour in the form of queries to online search engines, which are submitted by millions of users around the world each day. Here we present a method of analysing large numbers of Google search queries to track influenza-like illness in a population. Because the relative frequency of certain queries is highly correlated with the percentage of physician visits in which a patient presents with influenza-like symptoms, we can accurately estimate the current level of weekly influenza activity in each region of the United States, with a reporting lag of about one day. This approach may make it possible to use search queries to detect influenza epidemics in areas with a large population of web search users.
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            A New Dimension of Health Care: Systematic Review of the Uses, Benefits, and Limitations of Social Media for Health Communication

            Background There is currently a lack of information about the uses, benefits, and limitations of social media for health communication among the general public, patients, and health professionals from primary research. Objective To review the current published literature to identify the uses, benefits, and limitations of social media for health communication among the general public, patients, and health professionals, and identify current gaps in the literature to provide recommendations for future health communication research. Methods This paper is a review using a systematic approach. A systematic search of the literature was conducted using nine electronic databases and manual searches to locate peer-reviewed studies published between January 2002 and February 2012. Results The search identified 98 original research studies that included the uses, benefits, and/or limitations of social media for health communication among the general public, patients, and health professionals. The methodological quality of the studies assessed using the Downs and Black instrument was low; this was mainly due to the fact that the vast majority of the studies in this review included limited methodologies and was mainly exploratory and descriptive in nature. Seven main uses of social media for health communication were identified, including focusing on increasing interactions with others, and facilitating, sharing, and obtaining health messages. The six key overarching benefits were identified as (1) increased interactions with others, (2) more available, shared, and tailored information, (3) increased accessibility and widening access to health information, (4) peer/social/emotional support, (5) public health surveillance, and (6) potential to influence health policy. Twelve limitations were identified, primarily consisting of quality concerns and lack of reliability, confidentiality, and privacy. Conclusions Social media brings a new dimension to health care as it offers a medium to be used by the public, patients, and health professionals to communicate about health issues with the possibility of potentially improving health outcomes. Social media is a powerful tool, which offers collaboration between users and is a social interaction mechanism for a range of individuals. Although there are several benefits to the use of social media for health communication, the information exchanged needs to be monitored for quality and reliability, and the users’ confidentiality and privacy need to be maintained. Eight gaps in the literature and key recommendations for future health communication research were provided. Examples of these recommendations include the need to determine the relative effectiveness of different types of social media for health communication using randomized control trials and to explore potential mechanisms for monitoring and enhancing the quality and reliability of health communication using social media. Further robust and comprehensive evaluation and review, using a range of methodologies, are required to establish whether social media improves health communication practice both in the short and long terms.
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              Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation: teenagers' use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy and self-expression

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                J Med Internet Res
                JMIR
                Journal of Medical Internet Research
                JMIR Publications Inc. (Toronto, Canada )
                1439-4456
                1438-8871
                March 2014
                14 March 2014
                : 16
                : 3
                : e79
                Affiliations
                [1] 1Evidence Based Healthcare Program Department of Internal Medicine, Escuela de Medicina Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile SantiagoChile
                [2] 2Department of Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education School of Medicine University of Washington Seattle, WAUnited States
                [3] 3Department of Global Health School of Medicine University of Washington Seattle, WAUnited States
                [4] 4Department of Family Medicine School of Medicine University of Washington Seattle, WAUnited States
                [5] 5Department of Health Services School of Public Health University of Washington Seattle, WAUnited States
                Author notes
                Corresponding Author: Daniel Capurro dcapurro@ 123456med.puc.cl
                Article
                v16i3e79
                10.2196/jmir.2679
                3971364
                24642014
                57840f36-7ff5-4081-af39-555aa6b7fb83
                ©Daniel Capurro, Kate Cole, Maria I. Echavarría, Jonathan Joe, Tina Neogi, Anne M Turner. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 14.03.2014.

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.

                History
                : 21 April 2013
                : 12 May 2013
                : 17 September 2013
                : 14 October 2013
                Categories
                Review
                Review

                Medicine
                public health informatics,public health,social network,health communication
                Medicine
                public health informatics, public health, social network, health communication

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