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SUMMARY:The Role of Social Media in Health Prediction and Prevention: Digi
 tal Methods in Public Health and Behavior Change - Dr Sophie Lohmann\, Max
  Planck Institute for Demographic Research
DTSTART:20190605T140000Z
DTEND:20190605T150000Z
UID:TALK123760@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Elisa Militaru
DESCRIPTION:Social media platforms offer tremendous potential in the study
  of communication and behavior change. How can digital traces of behavior 
 be used to infer information about a community's health and how can social
  media increase the reach of health campaigns? Social media are used by a 
 rising number of people to share their thoughts and feelings with a wider 
 audience and the events that they describe and the language that they use 
 can be reflection of the community they live in\, including the health cha
 llenges they are facing. Our team therefore used Twitter data to derive ge
 ospatial online risk indices of sexually transmitted infections in the Uni
 ted States. These indices were able to predict the annual rates of gonorrh
 ea\, chlamydia\, and HIV infections in a given county. In addition\, healt
 h practitioners are increasingly taking to social media to disseminate hea
 lth information and prevention campaigns. We analyzed which features allow
 ed their HIV-related messages to be retweeted more often\, resulting in wi
 der dissemination of the information. Based on these results\, we propose 
 a set of five social media guidelines for health messages.\n\n_I am a soci
 al psychologist whose work focuses on communication and behavior change\, 
 particularly in the health domain. I recently received my PhD from the Uni
 versity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and will next join the Max Planck 
 Institute for Demographic Research. Part of my work evaluates the potentia
 l of social media to improve population health. In a second program of res
 earch\, I have examined trajectories of behavior change across time\, comp
 aring the motivational and behavioral consequences of preferences for radi
 cal versus step-wise change._
LOCATION:Ground Floor Lecture Theatre\, Department of Psychology\, Downing
  Site
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