Researchers Explore Social Media As Preventative Method for Infectious Diseases
When it comes to stopping illness, social media posts and tweets may be just what the doctor ordered.
A Kansas State University-led research team is looking at social media as a tool to reduce and prevent diseases from spreading. Researchers are studying whether a well-timed post from a public authority or trustworthy person could be as beneficial as flu shots, hand-washing or sneezing into an elbow.
“Infectious diseases are a serious problem and historically have been a major cause of death,” said Faryad Sahneh, Kansas State University doctoral candidate in electrical engineering who is modeling the spread of epidemics in an effort to reduce them. “During the last decades there has been a huge advancement in medication and vaccination, which has helped save many peoples’ lives. But now there also has been a revolution in communication and information technology that we think could be used to develop an even more robust preventative society against infectious diseases.”
Sahneh is working on the project with Kansas State University researchers Caterina Scoglio, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and expert in complex network modeling; Gary Brase, associate professor of psychology who studies how people make decisions; and Walter Schumm, professor of family studies and human services who studies family dynamics.
Collaborators also include Daniel J. Kruger, a public health scientist at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health; Fahmida N. Chowdhury, an expert in dynamical systems theory and control at the National Science Foundation; and Michael L. Parchman, director of the MacColl Center for Health Care Innovation.
According to Scoglio, having research collaborators from a wide range of relevant disciplines helps the team develop more comprehensive and accurate models that account for realistic human behavior.
Brase, for example, is collecting data by surveying college-age students about social media and what preventative measures they use against illness.
Science Brief thanks to EurekAlert.
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Researchers explore social media as preventative method for infectious diseases
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