Communicating genetics and smoking through social media: are we there yet?

ABSTRACT:

Background

Social media is a recent source of health information that could disseminate new scientific research, such as the genetics of smoking.

Objective

The objectives were (1) to evaluate the availability of genetic information about smoking on different social media platforms (ie, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter) and (2) to assess the type and the content of the information displayed on the social media as well as the profile of people publishing this information.

Methods

We screened posts on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter with the terms "smoking" and "genetic" at two time points (September 18, 2012, and May 7, 2013). The first 100 posts were reviewed for each media for the time points. Google was searched during Time 2 as an indicator of available information on

SUBMITTER: de Viron S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3785980 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature