Public Health 2.0: a literature review (169 articles, November 22nd 2011)Giustini D / Westbrook D

“…public health 2.0 is the term given to a movement within public health that aims to make the field more accessible to the general public and more user-driven. There are three senses in which the term "Public Health 2.0" is used. In the first sense, "Public Health 2.0" is similar to the term "Health 2.0" and is used to describe the ways in which

traditional public health practitioners and institutions are reaching out (or could reach out) to the public through social media. In the second sense, "Public Health 2.0" is used to describe public health research that uses data gathered from social networking sites, search engine queries, cell phones, or other technologies. In the third sense, "Public

Health 2.0" is used to describe public health activities that are completely user-driven…” ~ Wikipedia, 2011

Authors Year Article title Journal titleAche KA et al 2008 Human papillomavirus vaccination coverage on YouTube

article analyzes how the HPV vaccine is portrayed in video clips & viewer-posted comments on YouTube in 146 YouTube clips, three-quarters (n=109; 74.7%) of the videos portray HPV vaccine in positive way one-third (n=47; 32.2%) of the YouTube videos generated at least one comment study results reveal a variety of information available about HPV vaccination & cervical cancer on YouTube public health professionals should be aware of HPV information on YouTube to respond to patients

American Journal of Prev Med

Abroms et al 2011 iPhone apps for smoking cessation: a content analysis study examines content of 47 iPhone applications (apps) for smoking cessation distributed through online

iTunes store in June 2009 each app was independently coded by two reviewers for its (1) approach to smoking cessation and (2)

adherence to U.S. Public Health Service's 2008 Clinical Practice Guidelines for Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence. Each app was also coded for its (3) frequency of downloads

apps identified for smoking cessation were found to have low levels of adherence to key guidelines in index. few apps recommended or linked users to proven treatments such as pharmacotherapy, counseling, and/or a quitline

apps for smoking cessation rarely adhere to established guidelines for smoking cessation; current apps should be revised and future apps developed around evidence-based practices for smoking cessation.

American Journal of Prev Med

Abroms et al 2009 Obama's wired campaign: lessons for public health communication Obama’s use of new media is relevant for how we build communities in public health; new media is

evolving from previous campaigns such as Governor Dean's 2004 campaign; use of the Internet for grassroots fundraising stems from Obama's experience in primaries against Clinton who also used new media (Deighton & Kornfeld, 2009)

Journal of health communication

Abroms et al 2008 New media cases: The promise and potential article focuses on filling in the existing gap in the literature and potential of social media in public health it includes an examination of case studies on using new media in public health campaigns such as the Verb

Campaign and It’s Your (Sex) Life) and their use of social networking, video sharing, blogs/vlogs, text messaging and user-generated content (UGC)

study touches on the exposure/success of each campaign; some forms of new media were more successful than others (and major differences were observed in the campaigns)

Cases in Public Health

Communication & Marketing

Ackerson LK 2009 The social context of interpersonal communication and health. new modes of communication and technology impact how people collect and share health information study doe not look at Public Health 2.0 per se yet examines variables that “contextualize the interpersonal interactions” in health care (where interpersonal communication include friends and family members, consumers and providers, members of social networks, and public health systems)

Journal of health communication

Adams SA Blog-based applications and health information: two case studies that illustrate important questions for Consumer Health Informatics (CHI) research patients need tools to address information-gathering to enable more involvement in health care (e90) two social sites (weight loss in 2006 and patients with rare diseases in 2007) and posts about patient

experiences were examined in particular with respect to medication personal nature of what patients disclose... becomes part of “larger public processes and social activities”

(e92); interactions are not limited to online but reflect online and offline communication what deserves attention is how web 2.0 technologies are configured within existing (health) networks; do lines between online and offline shift when patients document health care practices (e94)

International journal of medical

informatics

Ahmed OH et al

2010 iSupport: do social networking sites have a role to play in concussion awareness? Study is a content analysis of 472 Facebook groups related to concussion screened by three researchers using coding scheme to examine demographics/ postings where agreement was not obtained, post-analysis discussion allowed for consensus 17 Facebook groups met inclusion, 145 postings included; predominant demographic was American males individuals use FB to share experiences of concussion (65%), seek (8%) or offer advice (2%) information sharing on FB is important; peer-to-peer interaction is key aspect of medium

Disability and Rehabilitation

Avery E 2010 Diffusion of social media among public relations practitioners in health departments across community population sizes

reports on survey of 281 practitioners serving 4 communities (urban, suburban, large town/rural) in 48 states low adoption rates of social media; differences based on community size with urban having high rates

followed by suburban, large town and rural communities; barriers include lack of home Internet access 17 % indicate social media used to disseminate information followed by discussion boards rural areas are low in overall use but report high use of podcasting implications re: health disparities are discussed new motivation for innovation adoption is introduced; future studies to follow S-shaped adoption curve

Journal Public Relations Research

Bailey DS et al 2008 Drug discovery in the era of Facebook— new tools for scientific networking article is about communication between researchers allows exchange of ideas, tools and technologies networking at high speeds is a recent phenomenon, increases cooperative and competitive behaviours web-based networking approaches are effective for drug discovery scientists social networking sites are evolving into serious sources of information for drug discovery community

Drug Discovery Today

Backinger CL et al

2011 YouTube as a source of quitting smoking information researchers identified YouTube videos by search strategies, ‘relevance’ and ‘view counts’ using terms ‘stop

smoking’, ‘quit smoking’, ‘smoking cessation (n=296 full sample; n=191 unique videos) in 2008 ~60% of videos contained messages about quitting; differences were found for videos about quitting with

'stop smoking’ as keywords (80.8%); ~half (48.9%) of videos contained evidence based practices (EBPs) for cessation strategies; non--EBPs (28.4%) or both EBPs and non-EBPs (22.7%)

Tobacco Control

number of views per individual video in six categories ranged from low of 8 in ‘relevance’ and ‘smoking cessation’ to high of 1247/540 in ‘view count’ and ‘stop smoking’

in top 3 viewed videos, 66.7% had specific mention of quitting and majority included EBPsBeard L et al 2009 A survey of health-related activities on Second Life

article reports on a survey of a range of health-related activities on Second Life including novel experiential simulations & applications for public health communication

Journal Int Med Research

Bender et al 2011 Seeking support on Facebook: a content analysis of breast cancer groups article reports on Facebook searches using “breast cancer”, restricted analysis to breast cancer groups; two

independent researchers extracted information examined user-generated content using coding scheme 620 breast cancer groups on Facebook containing total of 1,090,397 members; groups were created for

fundraising (277/620, 44.7%), awareness (236, 38.1%), product or service promotion related to awareness (61, 9%), or patient/caregiver support (46, 7%)

groups with most members (n = 957,289); (532, 85.8%) had 25 wall posts or fewer; support groups 47% (27/57) established by high school or college students had greatest number of user-generated contributions

Journal of Medical Internet Research

Bender JL et al 2008 Supporting cancer patients through the continuum of care: A view from the age of social networks and computer-mediated communication.

article examines use of one-to-one, one-to-many & many-to-many (message boards, chat rooms, web 2.0 applications) tools related to health-related social networks and online support

defines and provides examples of the different styles/types of communication online recommends that physicians observe these online social networks to better understand details regarding

disease progression that are perhaps not reported for a variety of reasons

Current Oncology

Bennett GG et al

2009 The delivery of public health interventions via the Internet: actualizing their potential. article examines the potential of Internet health interventions; social networking is reviewed among several

other considerations nearly ¾ of people searching online for health information do not consistently check the date or source of the

information they find; authors argue that will this is disconcerting, it shows there is lots of room/scope for public health information interventions

online health interventions can be engaging and make use of interactive tools that offer opportunities to individualize and tailor the interactivity of the intervention

authors argue for systematic investigations of the benefits of social-networking features (i.e. is it more useful for some outcomes (eight loss, exercise promotion) than others (STD prevention)?)

web 2.0 can help interventions better engage end users, and allow for a more participatory user role (interventions can work to engage users to monitor health and contribute)

health researchers need to collect data from consumer-directed internet intervention programs – this will help bring the public health community into the 2.0 fold

The Annual Review of Public

Health

Bock BC et al 2008 A review of web-assisted tobacco interventions (WATIs) J Med Internet Res

article assesses content and quality of smoking cessation programs; examines differences in quality between current websites and those from 2004

Internet searches for smoking cessation were designed to mimic search patterns of users PhD-level specialists used standard procedures to review content, assess how sites cover evidence-based

treatments from US national guidelines; determined accuracy of information presented results of current study compared to those from previous review websites retrieved met exclusion criteria and were not included in final analyses in both current (74%, 65/88)

and prior study (77%, 156/202); the majority of websites were excluded because they sold cessation-related products but did not provide treatments recommended by the Public Health Service guidelines

23 websites were included in the current study; 26% (n = 6) provided minimal coverage (brief mention) of treatment; scored higher in quality in four areas: advice (P = .05), counseling (P = .02) motivation to quit smoking (P = .05) and risks (P < .001)

web-assisted tobacco intervention (WATI) sites (69%, 16/23) contained no inaccurate information inaccuracies arise in content related to pharmacotherapy; % of sites offering one interactive feature increased

from 39% (18/46) in 2004 to 56% (13/23) in 2008; notable underutilization of interactive capabilities of Internet to personalize treatment, connect users to virtual support system and follow-up treatment contact

Boulos M et al 2008 Web GIS in practice VI: a demo playlist of geo mashups for public health neogeographers‐ article presents “playlist” of four geomashups that use semantic web, 3-D Internet with interfaces spanning

web (two-dimensional – 2-D maps), 3D world (Google Earth) 3-D virtual world (Second Life) four geo-mashup “songs” in “playlist” are: ‘Web 2.0 and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) for infectious

disease surveillance’, ‘Web 2.0 and GIS for molecular epidemiology’, ‘Semantic Web for GIS mashup’, and ‘From Yahoo! Pipes to 3-D, avatar-inhabited geo-mashups’

Web is evolving as intensely immersive, mixed-reality and ubiquitous socio-experiential metaverse heavily interconnected through user-created mashups

Int J of Health Geo

Boulos M et al 2006 Wikis, blogs and podcasts: a new generation of web-based tools for virtual collaborative clinical practice and education

authors explore Web 2.0 usage in education, professional development, and patient education overview of wikis, blogs, blogs with wiki support,, podcasts/vodcasts, and how these applications can have

long term implications for establishing collaborative clinical practices (virtual practices) need research in the use/evaluation of web 2.0 tools – specifically in medical/health context (should be

developing evidence-based best practices and uses)Boulos M et al 2007 The emerging web 2.0 social software: an enabling suite of sociable technologies in health and health care

education. article explores ways web 3.0 (Semantic Web) can be combined with Web 2.0 to “produce the ultimate

architecture of participation”; authors document use of wikis, blogs, social tagging, social gaming (MMORPG), and other social technology in health care (professional and public education)

Health Information and Libraries Journal

social networks increase sense of connectedness – something that can seem threatened during illness how we use web 2.0 technology is shaping the “future landscape” of communication and participation we need to raise awareness around the potential of web 2.0 tools, and provide quality evidence-based

research to better inform the use of web 2.0 in health care contexts – health care providers must become “social enablers” and better help patients, gather, learn from, and support one another

Briand S et al 2011 Challenges of global surveillance during an influenza pandemic surveillance is an essential foundation for monitoring and evaluating disease processes the H1N1 influenza pandemic of 2009 tested the capacities of countries to detect, assess, notify and report

events as required by the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR) the World Health Organization drew on official reports from Member States as well as unofficial sources

(e.g. media alerts) to report and disseminate information about the novel influenza virus; pre-existing Global Influenza Surveillance Network for virological surveillance provides information for rapid

development of a vaccine and detection of changes in the virus highlights shortcomings in global epidemiological surveillance for respiratory diseases; lack of standards for

reporting, risk factors and mortality data, and a mechanism for systematic reporting of epidemiological data these measures would facilitate comparison of data between countries and improved understanding this paper describes the surveillance strategies before the pandemic and the methods used at the global

level to monitor the pandemic; improvements are proposed to improve response for future events

Public Health

Brownstein JS et al

2009 Influenza A (H1N1) virus, 2009—online monitoring in 2009 the world focused on avian influenza in Asia; intelligence-gathering extracted evidence of acute

respiratory infections in Mexico; informal reports indicated “mysterious” illness in Veracruz 60% of 3000 inhabitants were infected; 2 had died; HealthMap collected info re: events in April 2009 see map report followed by another describing possible role of Granjas Carroll U.S.-owned pig farm in epidemic Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN) reported acute respiratory illness in Veracruz to World

Health Organization (alerts followed by WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, Pan American Health Organization, and Mexican Ministry of Health)

New Eng J Med

Brownstein JS et al

2009 Digital disease detection—harnessing the web for public health surveillance Internet systems are dominant info sources on emerging diseases though effect on public health is uncertain overload, false reports, lack of sensitivity to external forces such as media may limit potential in public health sources such as analyses of search-terms and news present difficulties for verification and follow-up technologies require evaluation; Internet provides a powerful channel for professionals and public to

determine surveillance, prevention and control of emerging diseases

New Engl J Med

Cain J et al 2010 Analysis of pharmacy-centric blogs: types, discourse themes, and issues article examines pharmacy blogs, themes; descriptive, qualitative, cross-sectional study in July 2009

Journal of the American

qualitative research methods used categorize; thematic analysis used to study discourse blogs were analyzed to determine type of impression (positive, negative, or neutral) given readers; 136 blogs

met study criteria; seven categories emerged; blogs assigned to news (n = 44) personal views (n = 38) categories; analysis revealed 11 themes, top four blog themes were issues with patients (n = 30), personal lives (n = 29), working conditions/issues (n = 20), and issues with other professionals (n = 19)

total of 24 (63%) blogs in the personal views category judged to promote negative impression of profession many pharmacy blogs contained derogatory posts about health professionals and pharmacy generated negative impressions of pharmacy; opportunity exists to use social media to advance profession

Pharmacists Association

Carneiro H et al

2009 Google trends: a web-based tool for real-time surveillance of disease outbreaks Google Flu Trends detects regional outbreaks of influenza 7-10 days before conventional Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention surveillance systems we explain how Google Trends data is processed, present examples and discuss strengths and limitations Google Trends shows promise as a surveillance system; best used for surveillance of illnesses with high

prevalences; suited to track activity in developed countries as it requires large populations spikes in searches may be harder to interpret but benefit from increased vigilance; Google should work with

public health agencies to develop tools such as Google Flu as a blueprint to track infectious diseases search query proxies for diseases need to be established for specialized tools and syndromic surveillance;

this innovative technology takes us one step closer to true real-time outbreak surveillance.

Clinical Infectious Diseases

Catalani CE et al

2011 Videovoice: community assessment in Post-Katrina New Orleans article describes project in post-Katrina New Orleans in rebuilding Videovoice is a health advocacy and research method to get behind video cameras to research issues,

communicate knowledge, and advocate for change community–academic–filmmaker partnership engaged 10 Central City neighbors to do 18-week training 22-min film premiered to 200 city leaders, 4000 YouTube viewers in 2 months; distribution of 1,000 DVDs helped mobilize community on three issues: affordable housing, education and economic development challenges included privacy and cost in resource-poor community; despite challenges, method may provide

community–academic partnership with opportunity to engage in research, independent media and mobilize

Health Promotion Practice

Chew C et al 2010 Pandemics in the age of Twitter: content analysis of Tweets during the 2009 H1N1 outbreak between May & Dec 2009, 2 million Twitter posts examined with “swine flu,” “swineflu,” and/or H1N; “H1N1”

tweets increased 8.8% to 40.5% (R2 = .788; p<.001); 5,395 tweets randomly selected over 9 days, 4 weeks apart; coded using tri-axial coding; tweets compared to automated coding

analysis indicated resource-related posts most commonly shared (52.6%). 4.5% were identified as misinformation; news most popular (23.2%), government and health agencies 1.5% of the time

Twitter activity peaks coincide with major news stories; results correlate with H1N1 incidence data

PLoS One

Chou, WY et al 2009Social media use in the United States: implications for health communication social media is not uniformly distributed across age groups; as such, the age of a targeted group must be

JMIR

evaluated when deciding how social media can be used for health communication uses the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS 2007) to examine usage frequency and user

characteristics for social media; through HINTS the article examines online support groups, blogs, and social networking, and sets out to identify socio-demographic and health-related predictors

Study found social media was used regardless of education, ethnicity, or health care access.Chou WY 2011 Cancer survivorship in the age of YouTube and social media: a narrative analysis

YouTube cancer stories provide understanding of naturally occurring communication; objective to get in-depth description of personal cancer stories; linguistically-based narratives of YouTube; analysis of 35 YouTube videos identified by search terms "cancer survivor" and "cancer stories"; thematic and linguistic characteristics were analyzed; subnarrative on diagnosis was present in 86% (30/35); diagnostic narratives characterized by tension, emotional engagement, loss of agency, depersonalized references to medical personnel, and unexpectedness of cancer diagnosis

highlights authenticity and emotional engagement in online communication; advances new and efficient exchange of personal stories; sharing personal cancer experience among cancer survivors

results point to common characteristics of authentic cancer survivorship stories online; results inform development of narrative-based communication, particularly authenticity and emotional engagement

JMIR

Chung DS et al 2008 Blogging activity among cancer patients and their companions: uses, gratifications, and predictors of outcomes study examines cancer patient use of blogs and relationships between types of blogging and outcomes online survey of 113 respondents; patients found to be more likely than companions to host blogs four areas emerged: prevention and care, problem-solving, emotion management, and information-sharing cancer patients found blogging helpful for emotion management and information-sharing cancer patients are more gratified than companions in emotion management and problem-solving regression analyses indicate perceived credibility of blogs, posting comments on others' blogs, and hosting

one's own blog significantly increased explanatory power of regression models for gratification outcomes

Journal of the American Society for Information

Science and Technology

Cobus L 2008 Using blogs and wikis in a graduate public health course. article is an overview of a graduate level public health course that focused on web 2.0 applications (primarily

blogs and wikis) author argues that public health professionals need to encourage a participatory online community (between

professionals and the public) by integrating evidence-based information into web 2.0 applications course required students to keep and update a blog and to contribute to a public health wiki; rubric evaluating

their use of the applications, their ability to collaborate, and to find authoritative resources online discusses the role of health science librarians and the need to “redefine information literacy into a more

contextual model” – one that accounts for academic and “google” pursuits.

Medical Reference Services Quarterly

Cohn AM et al 2011 Promoting behavior change from alcohol use through mobile technology interactive and mobile technologies (i.e., smartphones such as Blackberries, iPhones, and palm-top

computers) show promise as an effective means of communicating health-behavior risks

Alcoholism: Clinical and

Experimental

this study was conducted as a “needs assessment” to examine current smartphone applications (e.g., apps) that utilize principles of ecological momentary assessment (EMA)—daily self-monitoring or near real-time self-assessment of alcohol-use behavior—to promote positive behavior changes

data was collected and analyzed from iTunes for Apple iPhone©. An inventory assessed the number of available apps that directly addressed alcohol use and consumption, alcohol treatment, or recovery, and whether these apps incorporated empirically based components of alcohol treatment

findings showed that few apps addressed alcohol-use behavior change or recovery. Aside from tracking drinking consumption, a minority utilized empirically based components of alcohol treatment. Some apps claimed they could serve as an intervention; however, no empirical evidence was provided

Research

Corley CD et al 2010 Text and structural data mining of influenza mentions in web and social media data mining of social media (WSM) provides novel disease surveillance identify online communities for targeted public health communications (PHC) to assure dissemination mentions of influenza are harvested in 24-week period, 5 October 2008 to 21 March 2009 link analysis reveals communities for targeted PHC; text mining identifies trends in flu that correlate to real-

world influenza patient report; graph-based data mining technique detects anomalies among flu blogs connected by publisher type, links, and user-tags

International Journal of

Environmental Research and Public Health

Coulson NS et al

2007 Social support in cyberspace: A content analysis of communication within a Huntington’s disease online support group.

study aims to examine amount/level of support found in messages posted re: Huntington’s disease (HD) support group (1313 messages were analyzed using modified Cutrona social support behavior code)

posts offered: information support (56.2%), emotional support (51.9%), network support (48.4%), and esteem support (21.7%); article concludes that physicians can learn from the experiences/views posted online to such support groups to explore gaps in consumer knowledge/expectations and evidence-based practice

Patient Education and Counseling

Crespo, R 2007 Virtual Community Health Promotion. author outlines 3 ways health professionals can use online communities to promote community health: a

wiki to create a “bottom-up knowledge base” to document strategies and community knowledge not covered in professional/scholarly publications; create a community site to communicate info/events, facilitate discussion, etc.; and to use blogs to exchange information.

Preventing Chronic Disease

Crilly JF et al 2011 Use of electronic technologies to promote community and personal health for individuals unconnected to health care systems

article examines health care services and targeting populations outside of mainstream health systems 3 approaches/strategies are presented: community-focused (collaborating and community-based data);

health care systems (electronic means to reach out); individual (maintaining personal health records) health systems/electronic approach: understanding usability and limit of online outreach is “necessary for

effective planning” (1164) ; topic-specific websites and Twitter in private industry; “Technology alone cannot alleviate disparities in health care access”

American journal of public health

national study finds although people with higher incomes use Internet more for health records, people with lower incomes and without degrees are likely to benefit more from having health information online

Currie D 2009 Public health leaders using social media to convey emergencies: New tools a boon (news) Nation’s Health

Denecke et al 2009 How valuable is medical social media data? Content analysis of the medical web(Perhaps not public health 2.0)

Information sciences

Elkin L et al 2010 Connecting world youth with tobacco brands: YouTube and the internet policy vacuum on Web 2.0 conducted YouTube searches using five non-Chinese cigarette brands worldwide themes of 40 most viewed videos (N=163) returned for each search were analyzed 163 tobacco brand-related videos (71.2%, 95% CI 63.9 to 77.7) had pro-tobacco content vs. small minority

(3.7%) anti-tobacco content (95% CI 1.4 to 7.8); videos have tobacco brand content (70.6%), brand name in title (71.2%) or smoking imagery (50.9%); pro-smoking music video had been viewed over 2 million times;

four prominent themes were celebrity/movies, sports, music and ‘archive’, the first three of which represent themes of interest to a youth audience

Pro-tobacco videos have a significant presence on YouTube

Tobacco Control

Elkin L et al 2010 The extent of YouTube videos with smoking and smokefree words article determines extent of videos on YouTube that include smoking, quitting or smokefree terms Method—entered terms related to smoking into YouTube during January 2010; terms used were a sample

chosen from earlier study which looked at adolescents’ exposure to tobacco on the internet selected to provide balance between pro-smoking, smokefree and commercial terms; terms from earlier study

were; “cigarette”, “smoker”, “tobacco”, “cigar”, “smoking”, “quitting smoking”, “cessation”, “nicotine”, “menthol”, “quitline” “British American Tobacco” and “Philip Morris; searched for term “smokefree”

tobacco content on YouTube appears to be increasing. In contrast to a 2007 search of YouTube using the term smoking, which returned 29325 videos,1 our search returned 188,000; total number of videos on YouTube has also increased, and so the proportion of videos with tobacco content may not have changed

New Zeal Med J

Eke PI et al 2011Using social media for research and public health surveillance [editorial]

Journal of Dental Research

Evans WD et al

2011 Social media marketing and health behaviours: industry strategies, consumer behaviours, and public health responses

public health focuses on link between industry messaging in mainstream media (TV/print) and health outcomes using health communication strategies; social media (internet, mobile technology) has become dominant messaging space for industry to influence consumer behaviour

article offers insights into theory behind social media strategies in public health including how it is defined and how social media is used to 'push messages' to the public

paper reviews current evidence about social media impact on health behaviour and explores types of media used by different subgroups, and socio-cultural factors that impact ways groups respond

provides examples of how social media are used by health practitioners as a communication tool to change

health behaviours and promote change Text4baby uses Mobile Health technology (mHealth) to improve maternal and child health behavioral

outcomes such as increased Medicaid care, reduced smoking in pregnancy, pre-natal vitamins, improved nutrition

Eysenback G 2007 From intermediation to disintermediation and apomediation: new models for consumers to access and assess the credibility of health information in the age of Web 2.0

an unprecedented amount of health information is now available on the web, allowing individuals to sidestep expert intermediaries (doctors) and access information themselves

as consumers are having to evaluate and assess the reliability of health information online the role of the “apomediaries” is growing (the mediators who steer individuals to relevant information and provide credibility – e.g. consumer rating on Amazon, or social networking sites and wikis)

author argues that it is not simple a case the intermediated model is better than the disintermediated/apomediated model (or vice versa); rather, it depends on the individual involved and their particular situation

article examines general implication/effects of disintermediation and discusses considerations regarding credibility (questions whether the credibility of the apomediary could become more valuable than the credibility of the message/information source

Studies in health technology and

informatics

Eysenbach G 2008 Medicine 2.0: social networking, collaboration, participation, apomediation, and openness. examines central themes/values to Medicine 2.0 and how the three main user groups (consumers, health

professionals, and biomedical researchers) are affected. concludes that openness is the key theme to web 2.0 Medicine 2.0 is what ehealth was supposed to be all along”

J Med Internet Res

Eysenbach G 2009 Infodemiology and infoveillance: framework for an emerging set of public health informatics methods to analyze search, communication and publication behaviour on the internet

Infodemiology defined as science of distribution and determinants of information in electronic media data analyzed in near real time; examples such as analysis of Internet engines to predict disease outbreak (eg.

Influenza); peoples’ status updates on Twitter for syndromic surveillance; detecting disparities in health information; identifying publications on Internet (eg. Anti-vaccination sites, expert-curated outbreak reports); automated tools to measure knowledge translation, effectiveness of health marketing campaigns

how people navigate health-related information; how they share insights into health behavior of populations seven years after infodemiology concept was introduced, emerging fields of infodemiology and infoveillance

propose framework, metrics such as information prevalence, concept occurrence ratios & info incidence

Journal of Medical Internet Research

Farmer AD et al

2009 Social networking sites: a novel portal for communication in Facebook do users connect with common medical conditions; classify user groups identified, enumerate

number of individual users conducted search of Facebook between December 2007 and January 2009; medical and lay terms used for

Postgrad Med J

prevalent non-communicable diseases identified from World Health Organisation Burden of Disease publications to identify whether

identified 290,962 individual users part of 757 groups; groups accounted for 47.4%, patient/carers; 28.1%, fund raising groups 18.6%, and others 5.8%.

other groups contain representations from research community in addition to educational resources; most members pertained to cancer and cardiovascular disease (141,458 users)

Facebook is an accessible portal for patients, carers and healthcare professionals for experiences of investigation, diagnosis and management of disease.

research is warranted to explore the further potential of this new technologyFernandez-Luque et al

2009 An analysis of personal medical information disclosed in YouTube videos created by patients with multiple sclerosis

evaluated YouTube comments; selected sample of 25 out of 769 Multiple Sclerosis patient-generated video 557 comments; 320 comments met inclusion criteria and 70 contained personal health information (PHI) comments were sub-characterized for type of information (i.e., diagnosis, date, medication, among others) presents stratified content, patient risks and ethical challenges with YouTube comments

Stud Health Technol Inform

Forster A et al 2010 Passport to promiscuity or lifesaver: press coverage of HPV vaccination and risky sexual behavior article examines content of articles from 2003 - 2008 in British national papers that addressed adolescents

engaging in risky sexual behavior following HPV vaccination mixed methods approach used to analyze 92 articles; qualitative framework highlighted 3 discussions: news

of adolescents engaging in risky sexual behavior after HPV vaccination; counterarguments that adolescents do not engage in risky sexual behavior after HPV vaccination; parents' views of issue of risky sexual behavior

results show that papers provide parents with positive descriptive norms about vaccination; some adolescents engage in risky sexual behaviors following HPV vaccination and regularly discussed in press

this has the potential to increase parents' concerns about vaccination

J Health Commun

Forsyth SR et al

2010 I’ll be a cigarette—Light me up and get on with it: Examining smoking imagery on YouTube in May and July 2009, used “cigarettes” and “smoking cigarettes” to retrieve top 20 videos on YouTube by

view count; eliminated duplicates, 124 videos were coded, overall message, genre, and brand mentions analyzed using descriptive statistics; videos portraying smoking positively outnumbered smoking-negative

videos, as a percentage of total views across the time period; 58% in second sample were new; in smoking-positive videos, music and magic were numerous increasing from 66% to nearly 80% in July, music accounting for most of the increase. Marlboro was the most frequently mentioned brand

Nicotine & Tobacco Research

Fox S et al 2009 The social life of health information: American’s pursuit of health takes place within a widening network of both online and offline sources.

article states that “pursuit of health information does not happen in a social vacuum” report finds a majority of e-patients (adults looking for health information online) access general health

information: 41% read commentary/experience about a particular health issue (through news, website or blog); 24% refer to rankings/reviews of doctors; 24% refer to medical facility reviews/rankings online; 19% have signed up for online updates on health issues; 13% have listened to medical/health-related podcasts

report finds fewer adults (e-patients) create health content: 6% of e-patients tag/categorize online health content; 6% post comments, questions, or health information on listserv or group forum; 5% post comments or blog about issues; 5% post online reviews of doctors; 4% post reviews of medical facility; 4% share health-related photos, videos, or audio

39% of e-patients use a social networking site (MySpace, Facebook); small portion use it to follow health of friends or post about their own; 12% of e-patients use twitter or other micro-blogging service to share updates or follow updates about others; online health queries do affect the decisions/actions of patients

access and generational shifts have an effect on how social media is used to find health-related information–adults 18-49 are more likely than older adults to participate in health-related information sharing as this group continues to age and face more health concerns; e-patients are often going online to compare their options and find “someone-like-me” to help in their decision-making process.

over 6 years, the percentage of Americans looking for health information online increased 8%, from 27% in 2002 to 55% in 2008; for information specifically about exercise and fitness, the percentage increased from 36% in 2002 to 52% (biggest growth out of all health searches)

report also summarizes health information trends since 2002, and provides data on demographics and how people are looking for health information (and for what).

Pew Internet and American Life

Project

Freeman B et al

2007 Is “YouTube” telling or selling you something? Tobacco content on the YouTube video-sharing website. websites that appeal to youth and young adults; same target population for tobacco companies Internet use by young people is part of life; in 2006, more than ½ of Australians (15–24 years) use internet YouTube is a youth-friendly site that embodies web 2.0 participation; tobacco marketers use it accordingly

Tobacco Control

Freeman B et al

2008 Gone viral? Heard the buzz? A guide for public health practitioners and researchers on how Web 2.0 can subvert advertising restrictions and spread health information

many nations have curtailed advertising of harmful products to protect public health, particularly in chronic disease control; the growth in Internet-based marketing techniques is subverting ad regulations

steep rise in social networking is fuelling product promotion through electronic media; in contrast, there is limited public health research on ”new media” advertising

this paper provides an overview of advertising methods and examples relevant to chronic disease control; there is untapped potential for health practitioners and researchers who use media for health promotion

Journal Epi Comm Health

Freifeld CC et al

2010 Participatory epidemiology: use of mobile phones for community-based health reporting Traditional health systems serve a key role in protecting populations, but are typically hierarchical, and

information often travels slowly Novel Internet-based collaborative systems have role in gathering information and improving accessibility mobile usage is growing making real-time information tools available to clinicians and general public we present a summary of promising mobile applications for health monitoring and information sharing,

with preliminary results from a study of our deployment of a smartphone application which enabled the general public to report infectious disease events

early efforts at tapping the power of mobile software tools illustrate potentially important steps in improving health systems as well as engaging the public as participants in the public health process

PLoS Medicine

Frohlich DO et al

2011 The presence of social support messages on YouTube videos about inflammatory bowel disease and ostomies purpose was to explore types of social support messages YouTube users posted on medical videos compared messages posted on inflammatory bowel disease-related videos and ostomy-related videos analyzed differences in social support messages on lay videos vs. professional videos; researchers unitized

comments; total number of thought units amounted to 5,960; coded each through coding scheme YouTube users post informational support messages frequently (65.1%), followed by emotional support

(18.3%) and instrumental support messages (8.2%)

Health Communication

Frost J et al 2008 Social uses of personal health information within PatientsLikeMe, an online patient community: what can happen when patients have access to one another’s data

article examines the use of personal health information by patients in PatientsLikeMe analyzed 123 comments (selected based on criteria of key phrases); sought comments/questioning behaviours out of comments reviewed: 23% referred to treatments; 7% to symptoms or outcomes; 45.5% contained at

least one question, half which were eliciting advice comments allowed users to forge relationships around points of similarity: 25% of the comments analyzed

touched upon a shared concern, attribute or hobby

Journal of Medical Internet Research

Giddens J 2010 Learning and engagement with a virtual community by undergraduate nursing students(Perhaps not public health 2.0)

Nursing Outlook

Gold J et al 2011 A systematic examination of the use of online social networking sites for sexual health promotion aim is to examine extent SNSs are used for sexual health promotion and describe breadth of activities searched published scientific literature, electronic sources (general and scientific search engines, blogs) and

SNSs (Facebook, MySpace) to identify existing sexual health promotion activities health promotion activities were eligible for inclusion if they related to sexual health, used one or more

SNSs and health promotion; information regarding health promotion activity, target population and site activity were extracted; 178 sexual health promotion activities met inclusion criteria; only one activity was identified through a traditional systematic search; activities most commonly used one SNS, were conducted by not-for-profit organizations, targeted young people and involved information delivery

Facebook was most commonly used SNS (used by 71% of all health promotion activities) followed by MySpace and Twitter; 79% of activities on MySpace were considered inactive as there’d been no online posts in the past month, compared to 22% of activities using Facebook and 14% of activities using Twitter

the # of end-users and posts in the last seven days varied greatly between health promotion activities SNSs are used for sexual health promotion, although the extent to which they are utilised varies, and the

vast majority of activities are unreported in the scientific literature. Future studies should examine the key factors for success among those activities attracting a large and active user base, and how success might be measured, in order to guide the development of future health promotion activities in this emerging setting

BMC Public Health

Gordon R et al 2009 Halting HIV/AIDS with avatars and havatars: a virtual world approach to modelling epidemics study introduces concept of a "havatar" (a human avatar) pairing. Evidence is mounting that this pairing

behaves in virtual contexts like the human in the pairing might behave in analogous real-world contexts studies of havatars may give an approximation of human behaviour in real-world contexts; if virtual worlds

approximate real world details (geography, transportation, etc.), virtual epidemics in that world could simulate real-world epidemics

havatar modelling of epidemics offers a complementary tool for tackling how to halt epidemics, HIV/AIDS, since sexual behaviour is a significant component of some virtual worlds, such as Second Life

havatars place the control parameters of an epidemic in the hands of each individual. By providing tools that everyone can understand and use, we could democratize epidemiology

BMC Public Health

Graffeo I et al 2009 Cybertherapy meets Facebook, Blogger, and Second Life: an Italian experience project based on cybertherapy international (USA, Northern Europe) and application to Italian psychiatric

and psychological reality. CyberTherapy is used as an "aim", referring to it as real and proper therapy, created by qualified staff for recreational, psycoterapic, and educational purposes

cybertherapy is used for psychiatric or psychological unease, to become closer to qualified staff; an advantage is to reduce initial embarrassment created between specialist and psychiatric patient

Annual Review of Cybertherapy and

Telemedicine

Gray K et al 2010 Medical students’ use of Facebook to support learning: Insights from four case studies(Perhaps not public health 2.0)

Medical Teacher

Greene JA et al

2010 Online social networking by patients with diabetes: a qualitative evaluation of communication with Facebook evaluate content in Facebook re: diabetes; identified 15 Facebook groups on diabetes management; for each,

downloaded 15 recent “wall posts” and 15 recent topics from 10 largest groups 480 users were identified by 690 comments; investigators evaluated posts, developed coding; patients with

diabetes, family members and friends share clinical information, request guidance and emotional support two-thirds include sharing of management strategies, 13% provide feedback and 29% emotional support 27% of posts feature promotional activity as testimonials advertising non-FDA approved, “natural” products clinically inaccurate recommendations were infrequent but associated with promotion of specific products or

services; 13% contained requests for personal information from Facebook participants Facebook provides forum for reporting experiences, asking questions, receiving feedback about diabetes promotional aspect and personal data collection are common with no accountability or checks for authenticity

Journal of General Internal Medicine

Griffiths R et al

2010 Intoxigenic digital spaces? Youth, social networking sites and alcohol marketing examine how young people in New Zealand use alcohol reproduce alcohol marketing messages and branding in ‘Bebo’, a social networking site (SNS) information posted on approximately 150 Bebo Web pages; textual analysis and cyberspace ethnography social networking sites such as Bebo, provide young people with digital space to share alcohol marketing

messages via peer-to-peer transmission; enables youth to communicate how they consume alcohol and views of alcohol marketing; information shared by young people who use Bebo openly provided in personal information, forum comments, digital photographs and answering quizzes

young people create ‘intoxigenic social identities’ & ‘intoxigenic digital spaces’ understanding how youth use Internet to share experiences of alcohol is crucial to public health

Drug and Alcohol Review

Hanson C et al 2008 Integrating web 2.0 in health education preparation and practice examines web 2.0 applications and how they can be used for health promotion; also web 2.0 learning

outcomes; authors say it’s about audience not only receiving information but actively “pulling” it focuses on “how-to” for health educators and people working in health sectors; lacks the true value of web

2.0 - people aren’t only actively pulling in information, they are also passing it along as well as contributing.

American Journal of Health Education

Hardey M 2008 Public health and web 2.0 Following discussion of potential of web 2.0 tools, article concludes it offers opportunities for disseminating

health information and creating new data, generating new questions and dilemmas

Perspectives in Public Health

Hargittai E 2007 Whose space? Differences among users and non-users of social network sites Are there systematic differences between people who use social networks/ those who stay away despite

familiarity with them? Based on data from survey administered to group of young adults, this article looks at predictors of usage with

a focus on Facebook, MySpace, Xanga and Friendster. Findings suggest use is not randomly distributed across group of highly wired users. Gender, race and ethnicity, and parental education are all associated with use, but in most cases only when the aggregate concept of social network sites is disaggregated by service

people with experience and autonomy of use are more likely to use sites. Unequal participation based on user background suggests that differential adoption of such services may contribute to digital inequality

Journal of Computer-Mediated

Communication

Hawn C 2009 Take two aspirin and tweet me in the morning: how Twitter, Facebook and social media are reshaping health care

see what health care might look like at "Hello Health" a Brooklyn primary care practice that is an emblem of modern medicine; paperless, concierge practice that eschews the limitations of insurance-based medicine

Hello Health is popular because of cost-effective communication tools and social media In health care industry, from large hospital networks to patient support groups, new media like weblogs,

instant messaging, video chat, social networks are reengineering the way doctors and patients interact

Health Affairs

Hayanga AJ et al

2008 Medical information on YouTube [letter] Keelan and colleagues evaluated YouTube as a source of information on immunization; previous reports

indicate increasing use and inconsistency in quality of online sources about vaccination application of formal appraisal to a site that is unregulated, uncensored and designed more for

entertainment than dissemination of evidence-based medical advice may lend false gravitas to an online rating system as well as medical credence to a conduit of popular culture.

authors’ assignment of content of messages as positive or negative and conclusions may be invalid; by restricting search criteria to vaccination and immunization, authors limited analysis to 153 videos

JAMA

Heaivilin N et al

2011 Public health surveillance of dental pain via Twitter content of Twitter posts meeting search criteria relating to dental pain using set of 1000 tweets randomly

selected from 4859 tweets over 7 non-consecutive days content was coded using pre-established, non-mutually-exclusive categories; experience of dental pain,

action taken or contemplated in response to toothache, impact and advice from Twitter community excluding ambiguous tweets, spam, and repeat users, analyzed 772 tweets and frequencies 83% (n = 640)

were primarily categorized as a general statement of dental pain, 22% (n = 170) as an action taken or contemplated, and 15% (n = 112) as describing an impact on daily activities

among actions taken or contemplated, 44% (n = 74) reported seeing a dentist, 43% (n = 73) took an analgesic or antibiotic medication, and 14% (n = 24) sought advice from Twitter community

users share health information related to dental pain, including actions to relieve pain and impact of pain Twitter may provide an opportunity for dental professionals to disseminate health information

Journal of Dental Research

Hill-Kayser CE et al

2011 The role of Internet-based cancer survivorship care plans in care of the elderly created Internet tool for care plan at livestrongcareplan & OncoLink; allows users to enter demographics,

diagnosis and treatment and produces care plans in May 2007 and February 2010, 10,128 care plans were created; 828 (8%) for persons ≥70years (range 70–

101, median 74); diagnosis age for elderly users ranged from 32 to 100 years (median 72) compared to younger users, elderly were less likely to be Caucasian/college-educated (p<0.001), and plans

more likely to be created by health providers than survivors (38% vs. 26%, respectively, p<0.001). Elderly were equally likely to receive survivorship information (14%) and more likely to have primary care physicians (PCP) involved in care (54% vs. 49%, p=0.001)

small proportion surveyed reported high levels of satisfaction with the tool

Journal of Geriatric Oncology

Hoff T et al 2008 Using new media to make HIV personal: A partnership of MTV and the Kaiser Family Foundation. in 2006, MTV and the Kaiser Family Foundation partnered to utilize User-Generated Content (UGC) to directly

connect with young people about the impact of HIV asked their target audience to tell them/their peers what it was like to “live in an age of AIDS” – audience was

not only part of building/constructing the message, but disseminating it as well young people submitted videos for the television show, but there was also a vlogging contest and website on

MTV to support the show; the vlogs were featured on MySpaceHughes B et al 2008 Health 2.0 and medicine 2.0: tensions and controversies in the field

Does not focus on public health - emphasis more on health and medicine 2.0, as opposed to just public health 2.0, but nevertheless the major themes include all participants involved and the potential to personalize health care and health services

analyzes 2.0 health terminology (definitions and popularity) study discovers that despite personalized/customized health being a main feature of Medicine 2.0, academic

publications did not focus exclusively on it

Journal of Medical Internet Research

Hughes B et al 2009Junior physician’s use of web 2.0 for information seeking and medical education: a qualitative study(Perhaps not public health 2.0)

International journal of medical

informaticsIdriss SZ et al 2009 The role of online support communities: benefits of expanded social networks to patients with psoriasis

260 subjects recruited from 5 online psoriasis support groups; exploratory analysis performed for demographics and disease characteristics of users; perceived benefits were documented

mean (SD) age of respondents was 40.1 (11.5) years (range, 18-75 years), most (75.7%) were white, female (60.4%), and college educated (84.3%); key factors associated with online support included resources (95.3%), convenience (94.0%), access to advice (91.0%), lack of embarrassment when dealing online (90.8%)

most common activities were posting messages (65.0%) searching (63.1%); nearly ½ perceived improvements in quality of life (49.5%) and psoriasis severity (41.0%) since joining. Intensity of participation was associated with improved quality of life (P = .002), but not with improvements in psoriasis severity

AMA Arch Dermatol

Lo AS et al 2010 YouTube: a gauge of public perception and awareness surrounding epilepsy Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder but despite advances in education, there is significant

misinformation and persistent stigma; the Internet is widely used for information and communication this study sampled YouTube to see how epilepsy is perceived; top 10 videos were viewed 3200 times daily;

videos showed statistically significant differences for within-variable analysis in at least one variable: empathy or knowledge (P<0.001)

further assessment revealed that "real-life" epilepsy videos generated the most hits and comments, had the most favorable empathetic scoring, but provided little to no information to viewers

videos providing information had largely neutral or negative empathy scores. Video-sharing websites, like YouTube, have the potential to remediate misinformation and persistent stigma of epilepsy. The study underscores importance of recognizing attributes of videos to engage viewers.

Epilepsy Behav

Lofgren E et al 2007 The untapped potential of virtual game worlds to shed light on real world epidemics simulation models are of increasing importance within the field of applied epidemiology very little can be done to validate models or tailor use to incorporate important human behaviours recent incidents in virtual world of online gaming; accidental inclusion of a disease-like phenomenon provided

example of potential of systems to alleviate constraints; how can exploitation of these gaming systems advance capabilities of applied simulation modelling in infectious disease research?

Lancet Infect Disease

Kapp JM et al 2009 Updating public health teaching methods in the era of social media an epidemiology course taught at School of Medicine University of Missouri included students enrolled in

master of public health and master of health administration program YouTube assignment and health promotion using social media

Public Health Reports

Keelan J et al 2010 An analysis of the Human Papilloma Virus vaccine debate on MySpace blogs searched MySpace for blog discourse related to HPV immunization; analyzed each according to portrayal of

HPV, identified characteristics of bloggers, developed content analysis to categorize arguments 303 blogs met inclusion criteria. 157 (52%) were classified as positive, 129 (43%) as negative, and 17 (6%)

ambivalent; positive blogs argued that HPV infection was effective and there were no reasonable alternatives to immunizing. Negative blogs focused on risks and relied heavily on vaccine-critical publications to support views. Of blogs where gender could be identified, 75 (25%) were posted by men and 214 (71%) by women

Vaccine

Keelan J et al 2007 YouTube as a source of information about immunization On February 20, 2007, searched YouTube for keywords vaccination and immunization; included all videos with

English-language content with messages about human immunization; extracted information on type of video, clip length, and scientific claims made by the video

JAMA

Khan et al 2010 The next public health revolution: public health information fusion and social networks efforts to acquire, render and visualize the diversity of health intelligence information are hindered by a wide

distribution across fields, levels of government, and complex interagency environment presents a “conceptual model of a distributed biosurveillance information fusion framework” where the

individual, community and inter-sectoral all work together focus on collecting data (appears to be data mining) concludes with a brief note on generating a stronger public health culture

American Journal of Public Health

Khan SA et al 2007 Healthy Harlem: empowering health consumers through social networking, tailoring and web 2.0 technologies Discussion of healthy weight initiatives in Harlem.

AMIA

Khanna PM 2008 IcYou: How social media is the new resource for online health information Report on new social media platform for sharing health information.

Medscape J Med

Kim S et al 2007 Characteristics of cancer blog users survey completed by 113 respondents; 59.29% (n = 67) cancer patients; 31.86% (n = 36) friends or family 6.19% (n = 7) were health providers; 3 did not answer this question 77% of respondents were female (n = 87), and 22.12% were male (n = 25). 94% percent (n = 99) of sample

were Caucasian; most frequently reported salary earned was $60,000 and $75,000. The average age of the respondents was 57, and 91 (71.68%) respondents held bachelor's degrees or higher.

Journal of the Medical Library

Association

Knösel M 2011 Informational value and bias of videos related to orthodontics screened on a video-sharing web site In 2010 YouTube scan produced 5140 results and variety of information about orthodontics; highest # of

videos found to originate from patients; informational content of videos was judged to be low with poor to inadequate representation of orthodontic profession though moderately pro-orthodontics stance prevailed

majority of contributions of orthodontists to YouTube constituted ads; not viewed positively by YouTube users evidenced by proportion sorted by "relevance" and "most viewed”

Angle Orthodontist

Kontos EZ et al

2010 Communication inequalities and public health implications of adult social networking site use in the United States

Social media is important for communication and health information; few empirical studies analyzed data from National Cancer Institute’s Health Information Survey; 35% report SNS use in last 12

months; no differences by race/ethnicity or socioeconomic position; younger age (p = .00) was predictor being married (p = .02) and history of cancer (p = .02) associated with decreased use; use associated with 0.80

(p = .00) increment in psychological distress after controlling for other factors absence of inequalities across race/ethnicity and class offers support for use of social media to promote public

health; issues such as digital divide and deleterious effects on psychological well-being need to be addressed

Journal Health Communication

Koonce TY et al

2007 Toward a more informed patient: bridging health care information through an interactive communication portal examines Eskind Biomedical Library’s (EBL) collaboration with clinical teams to foster patient decision-making

and participatory healthcare through MyHeathatVanderbilt portal; encourages patients to participate in their own health care; generates more open communication with healthcare providers

library provides health information for portal: resources on health topics (subject and prevention based), journalist-written news stories, patient/consumer-oriented information in regards to research

as of July 2006, 15% (2,700/18,000) of patients using portal made use of library links (850 new users each month between July 2005 and July 2006)

Journal of the Medical Library

Association

Korda H et al 2011 Harnessing social media for health promotion and behavior change “social media” offers opportunities for health behavior change and lets users choose to be anonymous or

not; people of all demographics adopt technologies whether on computers or mobile devices; increasingly using these media for health-related issues; tools for health promotion and education

social media, like traditional health promotion media, requires careful application / may not achieve desired outcomes; article summarizes current evidence and understanding of social media for health promotion

discusses need for evaluating effectiveness of social media; outcomes research and theory in design of health promotion programs for social media

Kovic I et al 2008 Examining the medical blogosphere: an online survey of medical bloggers(Perhaps not public health 2.0)

Journal of Medical Internet Research

Lagu T et al 2008 Content of weblogs written by health professions(Perhaps not public health 2.0)

Journal of General Internal Medicine

Lefebvre C 2009 Integrating cell phones and mobile technologies into public health practice: a social marketing perspective provides overview of mobile technologies in public health in 2007, 255.4 million wireless subscribers in US (84% of total population); SMS usage went from 81 billion in

2005 to an estimated 363 billion in 2007; key features of mobile channel is it allows for two-way conversations among many p. 491 (IM, micro-blogging, social media sites all available on mobile technology)

previous studies: Hurling et al. (evaluation of 9-week physical activity program that had Internet and mobile components); SECINFO project in San Francisco (opt-in text messaging service provides information on sexual health and relationship issues - first 25 weeks of service= 4500 inquiries, 2500 of which led to requests for more information; use of GPS to provide targeted health information to specific populations - a mobile phone service in South Africa providing HIV testing locations through SMS (Ramey, 2007); Mayo Clinic InTouch Program provides (by subscription) a Symptom Checker, First-Aid Guide, and an ER finder

Health promotion practice

Lefebvre C 2007 The new technology: The consumer as participant rather than target audience. describes new media as a “digital extension of interpersonal channels of promotion”; web 2.0 is a destination author discusses that it is more than just solicited feedback, but engaging users and having them get involved

in the development/implementation/generation of programs/knowledge C (content) generators: 35% of adult internet users have posted self-created content online; 26% have

shared artwork, photos, stories, videos; 30% have rated a product, service, or person; 18% have created a mash-up; 11% have used social/professional networking sties (Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2006)

Lehavot K et al

2010 Psychotherapy, professional relationships, and ethical considerations in the MySpace generation results from graduate student survey (N = 302) re: use of online social networking sites, security efforts that

limit access, incidents of access to psychotherapists’ personal sites and Internet use by psychotherapists to obtain client information, and effect on therapeutic relationship. Using ethical principles and standards, we provide recommendations to decrease harms and maximize areas of opportunity for psychologists and constructive professional relationships.

Professional Psychology: Research &

Practice

Levine D et al 2011 Using technology, new media, and mobile for sexual and reproductive health describes technologies popular today; case examples how technology is used for sexual and reproductive

health; concludes with advice for professionals to stay abreast of new media and mobile technology while maintaining integrity, accuracy and authenticity to communicate with youth about lifelong sexual health

Sexuality Research and Social Policy

Liang BA et al 2011 Prevalence and global health implications of social media in direct-to-consumer drug advertising descriptive study of prevalence of eDTCA 2.0 marketing in top 10 global pharmaceutical companies and 10

highest grossing drugs of 2009. pharmaceutical companies reviewed (10/10, 100%) had presence in eDTCA 2.0 on Facebook, Twitter/

Friendster, sponsored blogs and RSS; 80% (8/10) had dedicated YouTube channels, 80% (8/10) developed health communication mobile apps; for drugs, 90% (9/10) had dedicated websites, 70% (7/10) Facebook, 90% (9/10) Twitter and Friendster traffic and 80% (8/10) DTCA television advertisements on YouTube. 90% (9/10) of these drugs had a non-corporate eDTCA 2.0 marketing presence by illegal online drug sellers.

J Med Internet Res

Liang BA et al 2011 Direct-to-consumer advertising with interactive internet media: global regulation and public health issues most rapidly increasing form of pharma marketing with $4 billion in US expenditures, outpacing physician

marketing and research and development (824) hundreds of millions of individuals use the Internet for health information, not surprising companies have

moved into this marketing using online DTCA tools, spending an estimated $1 billion. (824) risk to patients: over emphasis on benefits of a drug and risks not adequately assessed; illegal online

pharmacy allows patients to purchase drugs without a prescription.

JAMA : the journal of the American

Medical Association

Linkletter M et al

2009 The choking game and YouTube: a dangerous combination videos on YouTube using terms for recreational partial asphyxiation. Data on participants and occurrence of

hypoxic seizure. Results: Sixty-five videos identified. Most (90%) participants male. A variety of techniques were used. Hypoxic seizures were witnessed in 55% of videos, but 88% of videos used “sleeper hold” technique. The videos were viewed 173550 times on YouTube. Conclusions: YouTube has enabled millions to watch “choking game” and dangerous activities. Seeing videos may normalize behaviours. Increased awareness of activity may prevent some from participating and harming themselves

Clin Pediatr (Phila)

Lo AS et al 2010 Epilepsy: a gauge of public perception and awareness surrounding epilepsy the top 10 epilepsy videos are viewed 3200 times daily; statistically significant differences for within-variable

analysis in at least one variable: empathy or knowledge (P<0.001); assessment revealed "real-life" epilepsy videos generated most hits, most favorable empathetic scoring, but provided little information to viewers

conversely, videos providing information had largely neutral or negative empathy scores; sites like YouTube have potential to remediate misinformation and stigma of epilepsy; underscores importance of recognizing attributes of videos that engage viewers

Epilepsy & Behavior

Lofgren ET et al

2007 The untapped potential of virtual game worlds to shed light on real world epidemics simulation models are of increasing importance in the field of applied epidemiology; little can be done to

validate these models or tailor them to incorporate human behaviours the accidental inclusion of a disease-like phenomenon in a virtual world provides an example of the

potential of such systems to alleviate modelling constraints exploitation of gaming could greatly advance applied simulation modelling in infectious disease research

Lancet Infect Disease

Long T et al 2008 Using social media and Internet marketing to reach women with the heart truth Heart Truth Campaign's use of social media strategies to promote the "Red Dress Collection" fashion show and

"National Wear Red Day."

Social Marketing Quarterly

Larsen MC 2007 Using social networking: on young people’s construction and co-construction of identity online digital spaces /online social networking sites offer exceptional arena for individual lives of young people this paper illustrates how young people maintain friendships and construct their identity social networking sites can be a continuation of young people’s everyday (offline) lives a majority strive to be as sincere as possible – in short to be themselves this paper is based on an extensive ethnographical investigation of a Danish social networking site

Society for Social Studies of Science

Lupianez-Villanueva F

et al

2009 Opportunities and challenges of web 2.0 within the health care systems: an empirical exploration eHealth has emerged as an almost all en-compassing field involving the current medical social structure and

the new technological standard; arguably, eHealth is one of, if not the main health information resource article focuses on challenges and opportunities of web 2.0 for health information through online surveys sent

to physicians, nurses, pharmacists, support groups focus on communication processes enabled online of the patient support groups surveyed, 41% reported using the Internet to share health information and to

inform others about their own actions/activities briefly looks at the activities of private companies and governments to design personal health records and

search engines (Google health, Microsoft Health Vault, HealthSpace) and questions how users will appropriate these tools and integrate them into day-to-day life

Informatics for Health and Social

Care

Macario E et al

2011The changing face and rapid pace of public health communication health consumers are health collaborators, proactively seeking information via peer-managed blogs, social

networks, text messaging, podcasts, online gaming, and virtual worlds e-technologies result from human interaction and put the consumer in control; the challenge for health

communicators is to overcome the tendency to disseminate unidirectional messages and empower consumers to assess the quality and veracity of information from ever-compounding sources

80% of American Internet users have searched for health information online, giving us no choice but to reassess how public health delivers messages and resources to target populations

empower health professionals to adapt new technologies to advance public health; showcase best practices via YouTube and vaccination, Facebook's Izzy the Immunization Bear, FluWiki, Wii Sports for Seniors, virtual pandemic influenza training, CDC's virtual Whyville, Twitter, FireBlogging, Google Maps, mobile phones

social media offer efficacious possibilities to continue outreach in an era of diminishing resources

Journal of Communication In

Healthcare

Macias W et al 2008 The return of the house call: The role in Internet-based interactivity in bringing health information home to older adults (Perhaps not public health 2.0)

Health Communication

Marcus SE 2010 Lessons learned from the application of systems science to tobacco control at National Cancer Institute comments on importance of NIH program to research how social network analysis can be used to understand

health problems and tobacco control

Am J Public Health

Marsh A et al 2010 Using collective intelligence to fine-tune public health policy health portals are opening for capture of Patient Based Records collective intelligence has potential to support Public Health policy millions of people contribute to uncertified data stores; some explicitly collaborating and some implicitly

through patterns of choices and actions Collective Health Intelligence mines uncertified and certified data to enhance social pool of existing health

knowledge for public health agencies; CHI could be used to complement national programmes by employing innovative sampling, cost-effectively generating anonymous data trends that would quantify policy, indicate epidemiological effects and supply metrics to test policy efficacy

Studies in Health Technology &

Informatics

Marsh A et al 2011 Collective health intelligence: a tool for public health the health information/knowledge held within online social networks is a form of collective intelligence;

collective intelligence is a shared intelligence that is formed through collaboration and competition amongst participants

two main sources of information: from people actively collaborating and sharing knowledge online, and from the individual search patterns and choices/actions online

collective health intelligence, a “soft computing” application, could be used to generate anonymous data that could indicate epidemiological supply and effects metrics, and help test/shape policies

can use the data to better understand and predict preferences and behaviours can track emerging discussions and comments – specifically around diseases and outbreaks

Commun Med Care Compunetics

McNeilly DP YouTube and the emerging worlds of video sharing for behavioral science education. the public health workforce will need skills to communicate through websites such as YouTube, Secondlife

(www.secondlife.com), and Twitter (www.twitter.com)

Ann Behav Sci Med Educ.

Moreno MA et al

2010 A content analysis of displayed alcohol references on a social networking web site evaluated 400 randomly selected public MySpace profiles of self-reported 17- to 20-year-olds from zip

codes in urban, suburban, and rural communities in Washington county; content was evaluated for alcohol references: (1) explicit versus figurative use, (2) alcohol-related motivation including references that met CRAFFT problem drinking criteria; compared profiles from four zip codes for frequency of alcohol display of 400 profiles, 225 (56.3%) contained 341 references to alcohol. Profile owners who displayed alcohol references were mostly male (54.2%) and white (70.7%). The most frequent reference category was explicit use (49.3%); most commonly displayed alcohol motivation was peer pressure (4.7%). Few references met CRAFFT problem drinking criteria (3.2%). There were no differences in prevalence of alcohol display among four sociodemographic communities

Journal of Adolescent Health

Moreno MA et al

2009 Display of health risk behaviors on MySpace by adolescents prevalence and associations random sample of self-reported 18-year-old adolescents' publicly accessible MySpace Web profiles cross-sectional study using content analysis of Web profiles between July 15 and September 30, 2007; total

of 500 publicly available Web profiles of self-reported 18-year-olds in the United States prevalence and associations in displayed health risk behaviors, sexual behavior, substance use, or violence 270 (54.0%) profiles contained risk behavior information: 120 (24.0%) referenced sexual behaviors, 205

(41.0%) substance use and 72 (14.4)% violence. Females were less likely to display violence (odds ratio [OR], 0.3; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.15-0.6). Reporting sexual orientation other than "straight" was associated with increased display of references to sexual behavior (OR, 4.48; 95% CI, 1.27-15.98)

displaying church or religious involvement was associated with decreased display of all outcomes (sex: OR, 0.32; 95% CI, 0.12-0.86; substance use: OR, 0.38; 95% CI, 0.19-0.79; violence: OR, 0.12; 95% CI, 0.02-0.87; any risk factor: OR, 0.36; 95% CI, 0.19-0.7); sport or hobby involvement was associated with decreased references to violence (OR, 0.27; 95% CI, 0.09-0.79) and any risk factor (OR, 0.46; 95% CI, 0.27-0.79)

adolescents frequently display risk behavior information on public Web sites; further study should explore validity of information and potential for using social networking sites for health promotion

Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine

Moreno MA et al

2007 What are adolescents showing the world about their health risk behaviors on MySpace? examined 16- and 17-year-old MySpace web profiles to determine prevalence of personal risk behaviours cross-sectional observational study using content analysis of profiles; targeted frequently visited adolescent

profiles, selected 142 web profiles of 16 and 17 year olds from 2008 MySpace prevalence of health risk behaviors pertaining to substance use or sexual behavior, personally identifying

information, date of last log-in to profile; 47% contained risk behavior information: 21% described sexual activity; 25% alcohol use; 9% cigarettes and 6% drugs. 97.2% contained personally identifying information

74% included identifiable pictures; 75% subjects' first names or surnames; 78% subjects' hometowns 86% of users had visited their own profiles within 24 hours.

Med Gen Med

Moreno MA et al

2011 Feeling bad on Facebook: depression disclosures by college students on a social networking site evaluated college students' Facebook disclosures meeting DSM criteria for depression or episode Facebook profiles from sophomore and junior undergraduates and evaluated "status updates" applied DSM criteria to 1-year status updates from each profile to determine prevalence of depression

symptoms. Negative binomial regression analysis used to model association between depression and demographics or Facebook use characteristics; two hundred profiles were evaluated, and profile owners were 43.5% female with a mean age of 20; overall, 25% of profiles displayed depressive symptoms and 2.5% met criteria for MDE. Profiles were more likely to reference depression, if they averaged one online response from friends to status update disclosing depressive symptoms (exp(B) = 2.1, P <.001), or if they used Facebook more frequently (P <.001).

Depression & Anxiety

Moreno MA et al

2009 Real use or “Real Cool”: adolescents speak out about displayed alcohol references on social networking next term websites

adolescents display alcohol references on social networking sites (SNSs); conducted focus groups to determine adolescents’ interpretations of alcohol references; regardless of whether alcohol references represent actual use, adolescents interpret as representing actual use and acknowledge influences on peer behaviors

Journal of Adolescent health

Moreno MA et al

2009 Reducing at-risk adolescents’ display of risk behavior on a social networking web site: a randomized controlled pilot intervention trial

randomized controlled intervention trial; participants were self-described 18 to 20-year-olds with MySpace profiles who met criteria for being at risk (N = 190); single physician e-mail; profiles evaluated for references to sex, substance use and security before and 3 months after

190 subjects, 58.4% were male; 54.2% of subjects referenced sex and 85.3% substance use on profiles; proportion of profiles where references decreased to 0 was 13.7% in intervention group vs 5.3% in control group for sex (P = .05) and 26.0% vs 22% for substance use (P = .61) proportion of profiles set to "private" was 10.5% in intervention group and 7.4% in control (P = .45) proportion of profiles in which any of these 3 protective changes were made was 42.1% in intervention group and 29.5% in control group (P = .07).

Archives of pediatrics and

adolescent medicine

Morgan EM 2010 Image and video disclosure of substance use on social media next term websites examines young adults’ use of social media such as MySpace, Facebook and YouTube to videos depicting

alcohol consumption, inebriated behavior, or recreational marijuana use content analysis revealed majority of image and video representations of alcohol consumption depicted

females in social gatherings while images depicting marijuana use depicted solitary males videos were viewed frequently and gained positive ratings; in sample 1/3rd of participants reported posting

pictures depicting substance use on social networking sites; 97% aware others engage in this phenomenon students’ perceptions of alcohol-related postings were positive or seen as a matter of individual choice while

marijuana postings were generally viewed more negatively

Computers in Human Behavior

Moubarak et al

2011 Facebook activity of residents and fellows and its impact on the doctor-patient relationship(Perhaps not public health 2.0)

Journal of Medical Ethics

Niederdeppe, J et

al.

2007Examining the dimensions of cancer-related information seeking and scanning behavior. (Perhaps public health, but not public health 2.0) examines how cancer-related information is obtained and used in decisions about health (impact on health

behaviours and outcomes) study proposes the use of “information scanning” (acquisition of information during normal patterns of

experience/exposure, includes browsing news media) and “information seeking” (actively obtaining information outside of normal information acquisition)

in-depth interviews with 85 people (between June 9, 2004 and August 2, 2004), focused on 50-70 year olds after inquiring about sources of information – interviewers ask specifically about media and other sources not

yet named (Internet, books, newspapers, magazines)

Health Communication

Less than 15% reported seeking information from the Internet – comparable portion scanned

Nordqvist et al

2009 Health professionals’ attitudes towards using a web 2.0 portal for child and adolescent diabetes care: qualitative study

(Perhaps not public health 2.0)

J Med Internet Res

Nordfeldt S et al

2010 Patient and parent views on a web 2.0 diabetes portal-the management tool, generator and gatekeeper: qualitative study

explored attitudes toward portal for young patients with type 1 diabetes with social tools such as message boards blogs, locally produced self-care and treatment information and interactive pedagogic devices.

16 mothers, 3 fathers, 5 young patients (11-18 years; median 14 yrs) wrote essays on experience, irrespective of frequency or success using it; 2 questions were asked. A qualitative content analysis was conducted

Three main categories; "management tool," "the generator," and "the gatekeeper." One category related to functionality of portal, and range of examples regarding facts. Being enabled to search and find information regarded as an advantage, facilitating security and being in control. Finding answers to difficult-to-ask questions portal users did not know they had and focusing on sensitive areas such as anxiety was important

2nd category related to generator function in visiting portal could generate information leading to increased use. Active message boards were found to have value for enhancing mediation of peer-to-peer information

third category related to gatekeeper function of password requirement which created access problems. The experience caused users to drop portal. A largely open portal was suggested to enhance use by those with diabetes, such as school personnel, relatives, friends and others, unwilling to self-identify with the disease

JMIR

O'Rourke J et al

2011 'YouTube': a useful tool for reminiscence therapy in dementia? benefits of group interaction and cognitive stimulation for people with dementia have been displayed in a

randomised controlled trial, which showed significant changes in cognition and quality of life after participants took part in a 7 week cognitive stimulation programme

results were comparable to drug trials for dementia; meta-analysis supports RT in dementia and depression reminiscence groups have involved discussion of activities, events and experiences from the past using

photographs, objects, music and archival clippings to prompt conversation, interaction and memories Astell developed a multi-media ‘touch-screen’ system for people with dementia; positive results in

increased interaction and communication were found; technology can enable depth and variety of choice of reminiscence materials, offering someone with dementia more control over the types of materials used

Pandey A et al 2010 Youtube as a source of information on the H1N1 influenza pandemic examines effective use of YouTube as an information source during H1N1 outbreak; YouTube was searched

on June 26, 2009, using keywords swine flu, H1N1 influenza, and influenza for videos uploaded in the past 3 months containing relevant information about the disease

videos were classified as useful, misleading, or as news updates based on information contained total viewership, number of days since upload, total duration of videos, and source of upload; 142 videos

had relevant information about H1N1 influenza; 61.3% had useful information about disease; 23% were misleading; viewership share of useful videos was 70.5%, whereas that of misleading videos was 17.5%, with no significant difference in viewership/day

CDC contributed 12% of useful videos, with significant share of 47%. ; no differences were seen in viewership/day for useful videos based on kind of information contained

YouTube has substantial information about H1N1; source-based preference is seen among viewers; CDC videos are used in an increasing proportion as a source of authentic information about the disease.

American Journal of Preventive

Medicine

Paul MK et al 2011 A model for mining public health topics from twitter earlier studies have shown that twitter can be used to track trends, including news article presents the Ailment Topic Aspect Model (ATAM) – data mining tool that matching results produced by

Google Flue Trends and earlier models that were compared with government health data future iterations will include geospatial information to better track diseases across a location/population

Health (London, England)

Paul MJ et al 2011 You are what you tweet: analyzing Twitter for public health analyzing messages in social media can measure population characteristics and public health measures recent work has correlated Twitter messages with US influenza rates but this is extent of mining Twitter for

public health this paper considers range of public health applications for Twitter; applies Ailment Topic Aspect Model to

over one and a half million tweets and mentions of a dozen ailments, allergies, obesity and insomnia prior knowledge is incorporated into this model and applied to tracking illnesses (syndromic surveillance),

measuring behavioral risk factors, illnesses by region, and analyzing symptoms and medication usage quantitative correlations with public health data and qualitative evaluations of model output suggest

Twitter has broad application in public health

Fifth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and

Social Media

Pelat C et al 2009 More diseases tracked by using Google trends Emerg Infect Dis

Potera C 2011YouTube self-harm videos under scrutiny teens who inflict self-injury but aren't trying to kill themselves may be spurred on by YouTube thousands of videos posted there depict forms of self-harm; Canadian researchers say this is the first study

to examine the content of YT videos; self-injury was defined as the deliberate destruction of one's own body tissue without intention to commit suicide

other studies show 14% to 21% of teens & young adults have injured themselves deliberately at least once

Am J Nursing

Quincey C et al

2010 Early warning and outbreak detection using social networking websites: The potential of Twitter epidemic intelligence is used to gather information about diseases outbreaks from formal and informal

sources; social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are additional sources a method for extracting messages, called “tweets” from Twitter, is described; the results of a pilot study

collected over 135,000 tweets in a week during the current Swine Flu pandemic

Electronic Healthcare

Rains S 2008 Seeking health information in the information age: The role of internet self-efficacy.(perhaps not directly about Public Health 2.0)

Western Journal of Communication

Ralph LJ et al 2011 Finding teens in their space: using social networking sites to connect youth to sexual health services this study explores the potential of social networking sites (SNS), specifically MySpace, to connect youth to

sexual health services surveys and focus groups with youth aged 14–19 living in low-income communities in California revealed

high levels of overall Internet access, frequent use of SNS, and experience in searching for health information

disparities in location of access by race/ethnicity, and hesitancy among some to join an online social network, may affect success of this strategy in some populations

interviews with clinic staff highlight successes and challenges of using MySpace as part of outreach efforts staff described balancing benefits of web-based outreach, including low cost, wide reach & teen friendliness

with challenges, including technological barriers, teens’ safety from inappropriate contact and remaining timely and relevant

the study indicates that SNS and other technologies have strong potential for reaching diverse youth with critical health information when implemented as part of a comprehensive outreach strategy

Sexuality Research and Social Policy

Reynolds BJ 2010 Building trust through social media. CDC's experience during the H1N1 influenza response CDC began using social media “to go where people are, tailor health messages, facilitate interactive

communication and empower people when making health decisions” H1N1 was first crisis where CDC really employed social media to engage the public (podcasts, RSS feeds,

facebook, myspace, twitter, mobile texting programs, youtube videos, widgets on web pages) balancing scientific integrity through new media (clear, simple, more informal language - but not jargon) article discuses how [within social media], communities will dispel recurring misperceptions over time

(“public self-correction)

Marketing health services

Richardson CG et al

2011 An investigation of smoking cessation video content on YouTube. examines smoking cessation content posted on youtube.com. The search terms "quit smoking" and "stop

smoking" yielded 2,250 videos in October 2007. We examined the top 100 as well as 20 randomly selected videos. Of these, 82 were directly relevant to smoking cessation. Fifty-one were commercial productions that included antismoking messages and advertisements for hypnosis and NicoBloc fluid. Thirty-one were personally produced videos that described personal experiences with quitting, negative health effects, and advice on how to quit. Although smoking cessation content is being shared on YouTube, very little is based on strategies that have been shown to be effective.

Subst Use Misuse

Rietmeijer CA 2009Web 2.0 and beyond: risks for sexually transmitted infections and opportunities for prevention reviews web 2.0 tools to aid patients in understanding risks associated with STDs; examines internet as a

risk environment for public health; potential is “untapped and providers lag behind target audiences in creative and innovative uses of new media”

Current Opinion Infectious Diseases

Ridout B et al 2011 ‘Off your Face(book)’: alcohol in social identity construction and its relation to problem drinking in university students innovative approach to identity construction (photographic essay) used to provide insight into 'alcohol-

identity' on Facebook; 158 university students completed alcohol measures before accessing Facebook profiles and alcohol-identity according to autophotographic methodology

participants use photographic and textual material to present alcohol as part of identity on Facebook over half have alcohol-related profile images; alcohol-identity predicted alcohol consumption and problematic

behaviours measured by questionnaires used to identify alcohol-related problems in university students. Almost 60% reported problematic alcohol use according to Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test.

Drug & Alcohol Review

Rier DA 2007 Internet social support groups as moral agents: the ethical dynamics of HIV+ status disclosure ethics of disclosing HIV seropositivity to partner; data consists of disclosure in 16,000 pages, 16 groups, 7 sites research focuses on two questions; apart from support did groups debate moral issues (despite perception as

‘safe spaces’ for non-judgmental exchange did debate include moral judgment and conflict)? did medium generate new, alternative ethical discourse, or replicate existing discourse? data demonstrates groups engage in debate and verbal enforcement of ethics of seropositivity disclosure

Sociol Health Illn

Rimal RN 2009 Why health communication is important in public health a general piece about the importance of communication for global health

Bull World Health Organ

Sakaki et al 2010 Earthquake shakes twitter users: real-time even detection by social sensors(focuses on building a tool and algorithms to analyze the data)

ACM

Sapp L et al 2010 Blogging in support of health information outreach. examines how University of Texas Health librarians maintained blog to support health information outreach Staying Well Connected blog targets both consumers and social service professionals web 2.0 components of the blog: using post-to-tweet and then tracking the number of times the bit.ly

shortened URL redirects users to the blog (245) aside from minimal number of comments posted to the blog, this is the only true 2.0 activity happening

(users re-tweeting and sharing information).

Medical reference services quarterly

Sarasohn-Kahn

2008 The wisdom of patients: health care meets online social media ihealth reports (grey literature). article provides an overview of web 2.0 and health 2.0 online communities begin to self-policy and self-correct; misinformation is identified and corrected discusses the business of social networks and health information: online clubs such as The Biggest Loser online

club; advertising; and the use of online social health networks to aggregate user data for product development and trials

explores the future of web 2.0 and health, and opportunities for physicians to participate in order to ensure better content for patients

indicates that growth of “Patient Opinion Leaders” coming out of consumer-generated information

California health care foundation

Savolainen R 2011 Asking and sharing information in the blogosphere: the case of slimming blogs examines extent blogs are used as interactive forums to ask and share information study draws on analysis of postings at 8 Finnish blogs on slimming issues; data was examined using category

system of Interaction Process Analysis; findings indicate blogs provide emotionally supportive forums that serve ends of sharing; blogs are seldom used for articulating information needs and seeking information.

Library & Information

Science Research

Savolainen R 2010 Dietary blogs as sites of informational and emotional support sample of eight Finnish blogs on dietary issues; data of 489 postings and 1,117 comments in 2009 statistics used to calculate distributions for categories of soliciting and providing support qualitative analysis employed to characterize nature of blog postings and comments. bloggers solicited emotionally-oriented support by describing problems faced in dieting and experiences of

success. 63% solicited support; readers on bloggers' postings primarily offered informational support, esteem and emotional support. 65% provided support of various kinds; high percentage is due to specific nature of blog as person-centred forum where readers are expected to behave like invited visitors and provide support for blogger's project

Information Research

Scanfeld D et al

2010 Dissemination of health information through social networks: Twitter and antibiotics content analysis of Twitter updates re: antibiotic use; explore evidence of misunderstanding of antibiotics 1000 status updates, 971 were categorized into 11 groups: general use (n = 289), advice/information (n = 157) side effects/negative reactions (n = 113), diagnosis (n = 102), resistance (n = 92), misunderstanding and/or

misuse (n = 55), positive reactions (n = 48), animals (n = 46), other (n = 42), wanting/needing (n = 19), and cost (n = 8). Cases of misunderstanding or abuse were identified for the following combinations: "flu + antibiotic(s)" (n = 345), "cold + antibiotic(s)" (n = 302), "leftover + antibiotic(s)" (n = 23), "share + antibiotic(s)" (n = 10), and "extra + antibiotic(s)" (n = 7)

social media offer a means of health information sharing; further study needs to explore how networks provide a venue to identify misuse or misunderstanding of antibiotics, promote positive behavior change, disseminate valid information, and explore how such tools can be used to gather real-time health data

American Journal of Infection control

Schein R et al 2011 Literature review on effectiveness of the use of social media: a report for Peel Public Health data from the field suggests social media is becoming a powerful addition to the health communicators’

toolkit; research evaluating its utility is still in its infancy few studies have examined the utility of social media for adoption of health promoting and protective

behaviours; a chief conclusion of this report is there is a paucity of peer-reviewed studies testing social media interventions for desired outcomes

research has focused on documenting the range of health-related behaviours and the content of health-related discourse on these platforms

observational studies show informal health conversations related to public health issues and organized health-related activities on leading social media platforms such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook

quality of health information on these platforms is variable raising some concerns that social media users are exposed to unopposed viewpoints that counter public health recommendations and medicine such as those opposing immunization and promoting smoking.

Peel Public Health

Scola-Streckenback

S

2008 Experience-based information: networks in consumer health information services article focuses on the ways in which health professionals can study online patient communities to find ways to

integrate their services discusses social difference in terms of disease identity, and that some diseases are associated with more social

experiences in not adapting to web 2.0 user driven information sharing, medical and health providers could be

marginalizing current and potential users from their information services.

Journal of Consumer Health

on the Internet

Scotch W et al 2008 Development of grid-like applications for public health using web 2.0 mashup techniques public health informatics requires integration of multiple data sources and dealing with file formats,

schemas, naming systems and scraping content of web pages; potential solution is web 2.0 technologies to encourage and value information sharing and collaboration among individuals

development and use of 2.0 technologies including Yahoo! Pipes in a public health application integrates animal, human, and temperature data to assess the risk of West Nile Virus (WNV) outbreaks

results suggest 2.0 applications are reasonable environments for rapid prototyping but not mature enough for large-scale public health data applications

this “systems of systems” failed due to varied timeouts for application response across sites and services, internal caching errors, and software added to web sites by administrators to manage server load

results demonstrate potential value of grid computing and Web 2.0 approaches in public health informatics

JAMIA

Seeman N 2008 Web 2.0 and chronic illness: new horizons, new opportunities in 2003 web 2.0 began its meteoric rise in popularity, and the Internet became Canadians’ primary source of

health information socio-demographic factors become a nonissue online; as does geography (which is of particular importance for

individuals with rare diseases – provides them with a community that they otherwise wouldn’t have ready access to)

Online social networks reach user groups and populations that are difficult to reach through traditional health education methods (author sites men and isolated aboriginal groups as two examples)

Electronic Healthcare

Seiffer et al 2010 The utility of “google trends” for epidemiological research: Lyme disease as an example search engines have become increasingly popular for accessing health-related information key words used as well as number and geographic location of searches can provide trend data, as have been

made available by Google Trends; paper reports on exploring this resource using Lyme disease as an example because it has well-described

seasonal and geographic patterns; search traffic for the string "Lyme disease" reflected increased likelihood of exposure during spring and summer

the string "cough" had higher traffic during winter; cities and states with the highest amount of search traffic for "Lyme disease" overlapped considerably with those where Lyme is known to be endemic

Google Trends has been used to approximate certain trends identified in Lyme disease. The generation of this type of data may have valuable future implications in aiding surveillance of a broad range of diseases.

Geospatial Health

Shah SGS 2011 Patients’ perspectives on self-testing of oral anticoagulation therapy: content analysis of patients’ internet blogs blog text mining was used to collect 246 blog postings by 108 patients; content analysed using XSight and

NVivo software packages key themes in relation to self-testing of OAT identified were: benefits were time saved, personal control,

choice, travel reduction, cheaper testing, and peace of mind. Equipment issues included high costs, reliability, quality, and learning how to use device. PT/INR issues focused on frequency of testing, INR fluctuations and individual target (therapeutic) INR level

BMC Health Services Research

Steinberg PL et al

2010 YouTube as source of prostate cancer information YouTube was searched for videos about prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing, radiotherapy and surgery videos were in English and <10 minutes long; 2 physicians watched each and assigned scores for content (excellent, fair, poor) and bias (for, against, neutral, or balanced); 3rd physician arbitrated discrepancies kappa was used to measure interobserver variability; Pearson's test was used to assess correlation surgery videos averaged 2044 ± 3740 views and 172 ± 122 s long and had average viewer rating of 3 ± 2.2. radiotherapy videos averaged 287 ± 255 views and 97 ± 45 s long and had a score of 1.8 ± 2.5 content was fair or poor for 73% of all videos; bias was for surgery, radiotherapy or PSA testing in 69%; 0% of videos were biased against treatment or PSA testing; interobserver variability was above chance alone results show that some videos are robust given preponderance of poor information among reviewed videos; thus, YouTube is an inadequate source of prostate cancer information for patients

Urology

Sweetser KD et al

2007 Communicating during crisis: use of blogs as a relationship management tool post-test experimental design with control; investigates impact of blogs on relationship management in crises N = 109 were exposed to personal blog (n = 45), organizational blog (n = 46), or control (n = 18). Results indicate blogs impact perception of level of crisis an organization experience; relationships created through blogs impact perception of crisis. Use and credibility were investigated.

Public Relations Review

Sublet V et al 2011 Does social media improve communication? Evaluating the NIOSH science blog In 2007, NIOSH created the Science Blog as first social media channel with 22,000 subscribers evaluation identified blog community and use as two-way conversation channel 75 readers randomly participated in online survey in 2009; responses indicated NIOSH Blog was valued resource; 60% planned to use blog in next 6 months; high % said they make changes in practice due to blog

American Journal of Industrial

Medicine

Sullivan SJ et al.

2011 “Whats happening?” A content analysis of concussion-related traffic on Twitter Twitter is a rapidly growing site with approximately 124 million users worldwide; it allows users to post messages ('tweets') on a range of topics including those on health and wellbeing little is known about how tweets are used to convey information relating to concussion in youth sports study analysed online content of concussion-related tweets on SNS Twitter to determine concept and context of mild traumatic brain injury as it relates to an online population prospective observational study & content analysis; Twitter was investigated in 7-day period in July 2010, using 8 concussion-related search terms; 3488 tweets identified, 1000 were randomly selected and independently analysed using coding scheme to determine major content themes most frequent theme was 'news' (33%) followed by 'sharing personal information/situation' (27%) and 'inferred management' (13%). Demographic data were available for 60% of the sample, with the majority of tweets (82%) originating from the USA, followed by Asia (5%) and the UK (4.5%) study highlights capacity of Twitter to serve as broadcast medium for concussion information

British Journal of Sports Medicine

Suzuki, LK 2001 The search for peer advice in cyberspace: An examination of online teen bulletin boards about health and sexuality.

Article does not discuss the use of web 2.0 tools, but does touch on how teens are not only looking for health-information online, but they are also reading and contributing to user-generated information

internet is a promising source for health-information for youth, given its “accessibility, interactivity, and anonymity” (285)

study analyzes two health bulletin boards on a health support website (youth health/social issues) – both utilize user-generated information/discussion

questions/replies on 273 topics collected over a 2-month period – most posts were anonymous, and the results of the analysis revealed that questions mainly reflected the interests/concerns of the changing physical, emotion, and social state of the youth

confidentiality can be a barrier for teens seeking health information – anonymity provided online allows them to explore topics and share information in a way that doesn’t make them feel exposed

Takahashi Y et al

2009 Potential benefits and harms of a peer support social network service on the Internet for people with depressive tendencies: qualitative content analysis and social network analysis

cross-sectional Internet survey of participants, which involved the collection of SNS log files and a questionnaire, conducted in an SNS for people with self-reported depressive tendencies in Japan in 2007. Quantitative data, user demographics, depressive state, and assessment of SNS (positive vs not positive), were statistically analyzed. Descriptive contents of responses to open-ended questions concerning advantages and disadvantages of SNS participation were analyzed using the inductive approach of qualitative content analysis

Contents organized into codes, concepts, categories, and a storyline based on the grounded theory approach. Social relationships, derived from data of "friends," were analyzed using social network analysis where measures and extent of interpersonal association were calculated based on social network theory. Each analysis performed through a concurrent triangulation design of mixed methods strategy.

Journal of Medical Internet Research

Taylor L et al 2010 Psychologists' attitudes and ethical concerns regarding the use of social networking web sites psychologists seek to control self-disclosure but Internet's rapid growth has introduced problems in

inappropriate disclosures 695 psychology graduate students and psychologists were surveyed about their use of social networking sites opinions regarding regulation of online activities by American Psychological Association (APA), and interactions

in clinical work as a result of online activities. Established psychologists seldom use SNWs and may lack experience to provide guidance.

No consensus for APA guidelines emerged; APA has not issued guidelines in technological areas

Professional Psychology: Research &

Practice

Terry M 2009 Twittering healthcare: social media and medicine. examines how health practitioners/organizations are using twitter, looking at individual physicians (to pass

information, to gather medical information, and to gather professional information), hospitals, TrialX, and Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

TrialX (organization helps patients find clinical trials and connects them to the principle investigators) developed a twitter app that patients can direct their tweets to; the program searches the tweet for values and then tweets back a web site that will direct the user to trials of interest. Tweets can be sent publicly or privately.

Telemedicine and e-Health

Thackeray R et al

2008 Enhancing promotional strategies within social marketing programs: use of web 2.0 social media second generation applications (i.e., Web 2.0) where users control communication holds promise for

promotional social marketing; web 2.0 can engage consumers by distributing information via collaborative writing, content sharing, social networking, social bookmarking and syndication

web 2.0 can enhance power of viral marketing by increasing speed consumers share experiences due to potential effectiveness of Web 2.0, social marketers may be enticed to use tools in plans as strategic issues such as audience preferences, selection of applications, tracking and evaluation &related

costs are considered, Web 2.0 will expand to allow health promotion practitioners direct access to consumers with less dependency on traditional communication channels.

Health Promotion Practice

Thompson LA et al

2008 The intersection of online social networking with medical professionalism(Perhaps not public health 2.0)

Journal of General Internal Medicine

Thompson LA 2011 Protected health information on social networking sites: ethical and legal considerations multidisciplinary team performed two cross-sectional analyses at the University of Florida in 2007 and 2009 of

medical students and residents to see who had Facebook profiles. For each identified profile, they manually scanned profiles for textual or photographic representations of protected health information, portrayals of people, names, dates, or descriptions of procedures

½ of eligible students had Facebook profiles (49.8%, or n=1023 out of 2053); 12 instances of patient violation where students posted photographs; none posted identifiable information. Each occurred in developing countries on apparent medical missions; portrayals increased over time (1 in the 2007 cohort; 11 in 2009; P = .03). Medical students more likely to have violations than residents (11 vs 1, P = .04); no difference by gender

JMIR

Tian Y 2010 Organ donation on Web 2.0: content and audience analysis of organ donation videos on YouTube study examines content of and audience response to organ donation videos on YouTube positive frames were identified in videos and comments; analysis reveals relationship between media frames

and audience frames. Videos covered content such as kidney, liver, organ donation and youth; no differences were found between videos produced by US organizations and individuals and those in other countries

findings provide insight into communication technologies reshaping communication; web 2.0 characterized by user-generated content and interactivity for health communication and practices discussed

Health Communication

Tozzi AE et al 2010 Comparison of quality of internet pages on human papillomavirus immunization in Italian and in English Five reviewers assessed web pages retrieved with search engines using criteria from Good Information

Practice Essential Criteria for Vaccine Safety Web Sites recommended by the World Health Organization pages were assessed in accessibility, credibility, content and design; scores were compared through

nonparametric statistical tests; retrieved 74 Web sites in Italian and 117 in English most pages (33.5%) were from private agencies; median scores were higher for English web pages than

Italian (p < .01), credibility (p < .01) and content (p < .01); highest credibility and content from governmental agencies or universities; accessibility and content scores were linked (p < .01) also credibility scores (p < .01)

16.2% of web pages in Italian opposed HPV immunization compared with 6.0% in English (p < .05) information and number of web pages opposing HPV immunization varies with language; high-quality web

pages especially from public health agencies and universities should be easily accessible and retrievable

Journal of adolescent health

Tsai C et al 2007 Patient-centered consumer health social network websites: A pilot study of quality of user-generated health information

examines the quality of user-generated information on Diabetes Mellitus Type 1 from 3 health social networking sites (DailyStrength.org, RevolutionHealth.com, and CarePlace.com)

48% of the postings contained medical information and 54% were either incomplete or had errors; 85% were incomplete and had errors that were “potentially clinically significant”

AMIA Symposium Proceedings

Van de Belt TH et al

2010 Definition of health 2.0 and medicine 2.0: a systematic review. presents a systematic review of the ways in which Health 2.0 and Medicine 2.0 have been defined (authors

examined gray literature and electronic databases, namely PubMed, Scopus, and CINAHL) 5% of all google searches are for health-related information 7 recurring topics were identified: patients/consumers, web 2.0 applications, social networking, professionals,

change of/new health care, collaboration, and health information. in the 35 definitions that included patients, 12 discussed patient empowerment and active participation. collaboration (in regards to patients actively contributing and participating in their own care process) was

discussed in 14 of the definitions

J Med Internet Res

van Uden-Kraan CF et al

2009 Participation in online support groups endorses patients’ empowerment.Article doesn’t focus on web 2.0 tools, but does discuss participation in online support groups – can argue that there is cross-over for benefits (sharing info online in a social manner) authors set out to collect direct evidence of the effects of participation in online support groups on patient

empowerment (through a questionnaire completed by 528 individuals) across diagnostic groups (breast cancer, fibromyalgia and arthritis) patients felt better information and an

enhanced social-well being through their participation in the online support group

Patient Education and Counseling

Vance K et al 2009 Social Internet sites as a source of public health information social media such as YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Second Life are emerging as sources of health

information for teens and young adults marketing carries advantages of low cost, rapid transmission in community and user interaction. Disadvantages are blind authorship, lack of source citation and presentation of opinions as fact Dermatologists and other health providers should recognize importance of social media and potential

usefulness for disseminating health information.

Dermatology Clinics

Versteeg KM et al

2009 Teenagers wanting medical advice: is MySpace the answer? ~55% of Internet-using teenagers visit social networking sites (eg, MySpace and Facebook) Many join health-related groups which are unmonitored; this may pose a threat because adolescents use the

Internet as a primary source of health information and may be unable to judge sites' reliability and accuracy study describes content of asthma-related interest groups on MySpace; institutional review board determined

study was exempt from approval as it was observing public behavior data collected from MySpace groups composed of a main group page and forums; discussion is made up of a

thread of questions or comments (posts) on a topic.

Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine

Viswanath K et al

2007 Health disparities, communication inequalities and eHealth. article argues that e-health communication policies must address communication inequalities Not directly on Public Health 2.0

American Journal of Preventive

Medicine

West J 2011 Breastfeeding and blogging: exploring the utility of blogs to promote breastfeeding determine extent blogs are used to support breastfeeding; sample of 32 active blogs, 354 posts and 881

comments; attitudes (28.5%), behavioral cues (23.8%), and consciousness-raising (25.3%) praise (43.3%), behavioral cues (37.4%), and attitudes (30.4%) were prominent in comments

information was least effective at eliciting behavior support; educators wishing to support breastfeeding may use blogs and partner with industry; efforts might focus on supporting breastfeeding behaviours

American J Health Ed

Wright DG et al

2011Using YouTube to bridge the gap between Baby Boomers and Millenials

J Nurs Educ

Wilson K et al 2009Coping with public health 2.0 a commentary on the rise of social media in public health

Canadian Medical Association

JournalWilson BJ 2007 Designing media messages about health and nutrition: what strategies are most effective

report focuses on how to design media messages about nutrition to persuade and adopt healthy behaviors Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) is used as a framework to explore information-processing that individuals

use in communication; studies from communication and psychology are reviewed with focus on source and message strategies that are likely to persuade audiences to change attitudes and behaviors

J Nutr Educ Behav

Yee L et al 2010 The role of the social network in contraceptive decision-making among young, African American and Latina women

study used an in-depth qualitative approach to examine contraceptive decision-making in social networks among a group of young, postpartum urban minority women

semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 consenting postpartum women; in-person one-on-one interviews were reviewed for themes using an iterative process; qualitative analysis identified themes

In this cohort of African American (63%) and Hispanic (37%) women (median age, 26), 73% had unplanned pregnancies; their social networks, friends, mothers, and partners, were key sources of contraception myths, misconceptions and vicarious experiences

women utilized media as an additional source of information; information in social networks had a direct influence on contraceptive decisions for many women

Journal of Adolescent Health

Zhou T et al 2011 Emergence of scale-free leadership structure in social recommender systems the study of social networks is important for opinion formation this paper reports empirical analysis extracted from four sites with social functionality (Delicious, Flickr,

Twitter and YouTube) and scale-free leadership structures artificial agent-based simulations highlight "good get richer" mechanisms where users with good judgment

become popular leaders. Simulations indicate social recommendation mechanism can improve user experiences by adapting to tastes of users; with implications for real online resource-sharing systems

PLOS One

Zrebiec JF 2005

Internet communities: do they improve coping with diabetes? Perhaps not Public Health 2.0 directly – but of interest the article summarizes a study that aims to evaluate online educational and emotional resources for

individuals with diabetes and their families (through a survey) article focusing on discussion boards, but refers to studies that look specifically at more 2.0 social tools

The Diabetes Educator