Detecting the Determinants of Health in Social Media

Authors

  • Caitlin Rivers Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory, Virginia Bioinformatics Institute
  • Bryan Lewis Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory, Virginia Bioinformatics Institute
  • Sean Young UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5210/ojphi.v5i1.4541

Abstract

The explosive use of social media sites presents a unique opportunity for developing alternative methods for understanding the health of the public. The emerging field of 'digital epidemiology' has been shown to detect outbreaks of influenza-like illness 1-2 weeks in advance of traditional surveillance methods. However, behaviors that lead to increased risk for disease have not yet been studied in this manner. We present a surveillance methodology to help sift through the vast volumes of social media data to detect behaviors and determinants of health contributing to both disease transmission and chronic illness.

Author Biography

Caitlin Rivers, Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory, Virginia Bioinformatics Institute

Caitlin Rivers is studying computational epidemiology in the Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory under the direction of Dr. Bryan Lewis. She is an MPH student in the Department of Population Health Science, and a PhD student in the Department of Genetics, Bioinformatics & Computational Biology at Virginia Tech.

Downloads

Published

2013-03-23

How to Cite

Rivers, C., Lewis, B., & Young, S. (2013). Detecting the Determinants of Health in Social Media. Online Journal of Public Health Informatics, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.5210/ojphi.v5i1.4541

Issue

Vol. 5 No. 1 (2013)

Section

Poster Presentations

License

Authors own copyright of their articles appearing in the Online Journal of Public Health Informatics. Readers may copy articles without permission of the copyright owner(s), as long as the author and OJPHI are acknowledged in the copy and the copy is used for educational, not-for-profit purposes. Share-alike: when posting copies or adaptations of the work, release the work under the same license as the original. For any other use of articles, please contact the copyright owner. The journal/publisher is not responsible for subsequent uses of the work, including uses infringing the above license. It is the author's responsibility to bring an infringement action if so desired by the author.