Dataset Information

Dementia Research on Facebook and Twitter: Current Practice and Challenges.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Social media is a powerful tool for engaging diverse audiences in dementia research. However, there is little data summarizing current content exchange in this context.

Objective

To inform ethical dementia research engagement on social media, we characterized current practices by analyzing public social media posts.

Methods

We retrieved Facebook (2-year period, N = 7,896) and Twitter (1-year period, N = 9,323) posts containing dementia research-related keywords using manual and machine learning-based search strategies. We performed qualitative and quantitative content and sentiment analyses on random samples (10%) of the posts.

Results

Top Facebook users were advocacy (45%) and health organizations (25%). On Twitter, academics/researchers were the largest user group. Prevention was the most frequently coded theme (Facebook 30%; Twitter 26%), followed by treatment (Facebook 15%; Twitter 18%). Diagnostics had the highest Facebook engagement. Sharing knowledge was the primary form of content exchange (Facebook 63%; Twitter 80%). Most shared journal articles were peer-reviewed and open access. Emotional tone was overall more positive on Facebook. Justice was a prominent ethics topic regarding inequalities related to identity and intersecting modes of marginalization in dementia research.

Conclusion

The findings indicate the importance of social media as an engagement tool of current topics in health research and reveal areas of potential for increased engagement. These data can inform consensus-based best practices for ethical social media application in dementia research.

SUBMITTER: Hrincu V

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9697056 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Dementia Research on Facebook and Twitter: Current Practice and Challenges.

Hrincu Viorica V An Zijian Z Joseph Kenneth K Jiang Yu Fei YF Robillard Julie M JM

Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD 20220101 2

<h4>Background</h4>Social media is a powerful tool for engaging diverse audiences in dementia research. However, there is little data summarizing current content exchange in this context.<h4>Objective</h4>To inform ethical dementia research engagement on social media, we characterized current practices by analyzing public social media posts.<h4>Methods</h4>We retrieved Facebook (2-year period, N = 7,896) and Twitter (1-year period, N = 9,323) posts containing dementia research-related keywords u ...[more]

PMID: 36155513

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundWhen the Zika virus outbreak became a global health emergency in early 2016, the scientific community responded with an increased output of Zika-related research. This upsurge in research naturally made its way into academic journals along with editorials, news, and reports. However, it is not yet known how or whether these scholarly communications were distributed to the populations most affected by Zika.Methodology/principal findingsTo understand how scientific outputs about Zika reached global and local audiences, we collected Tweets and Facebook posts that linked to Zika-related research in the first six months of 2016. Using a language detection algorithm, we found that up to 90% of Twitter and 76% of Facebook posts are in English. However, when none of the authors of the scholarly article are from English-speaking countries, posts on both social media are less likely to be in English. The effect is most pronounced on Facebook, where the likelihood of posting in English is between 11 and 16% lower when none of the authors are from English-speaking countries, as compared to when some or all are. Similarly, posts about papers written with a Brazilian author are 13% more likely to be in Portuguese on Facebook than when made on Twitter.Conclusions/significanceOur main conclusion is that scholarly communication on Twitter and Facebook of Zika-related research is dominated by English, despite Brazil being the epicenter of the Zika epidemic. This result suggests that scholarly findings about the Zika virus are unlikely to be distributed directly to relevant populations through these popular online mediums. Nevertheless, there are differences between platforms. Compared to Twitter, scholarly communication on Facebook is more likely to be in the language of an author's country. The Zika outbreak provides a useful case-study for understanding how scientific outputs are communicated to relevant populations. Our results suggest that Facebook is a more effective channel than Twitter, if communication is desired to be in the native language of the affected country. Further research should explore how local media-such as governmental websites, newspapers and magazines, as well as television and radio-disseminate scholarly publication.

Dataset Information

Dementia Research on Facebook and Twitter: Current Practice and Challenges.

Background

Objective

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Publications

Dementia Research on Facebook and Twitter: Current Practice and Challenges.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets