Utility of Facebook's Social Connectedness Index in Modeling COVID-19 Spread: Exponential Random Graph Modeling Study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The COVID-19 (the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus) pandemic has underscored the need for additional data, tools, and methods that can be used to combat emerging and existing public health concerns. Since March 2020, there has been substantial interest in using social media data to both understand and intervene in the pandemic. Researchers from many disciplines have recently found a relationship between COVID-19 and a new data set from Facebook called the Social Connectedness Index (SCI).

Objective

Building off this work, we seek to use the SCI to examine how social similarity of Missouri counties could explain similarities of COVID-19 cases over time. Additionally, we aim to add to the body of literature on the utility of the SCI by using a novel modeling t

SUBMITTER: Prusaczyk B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8675563 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature