Social media use is common in the US, especially in the lives of young people. People use social media to look for health information, support, and advice. Public health officials recommend Pap tests and the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine to prevent cervical cancer. Social media can be a promising way to encourage women to prevent cervical cancer, but we know very little about how people think and talk about it on social media.
Our project analyzed data from Twitter, a popular social media platform, to shed light on how people talk about cervical cancer prevention. We then used an online experiment to test whether what we learned from the Twitter data could be used to design messages to change people’s knowledge, attitudes, and behavior.
Publications
Lyson HC, Le GM, Zhang J, Rivadeneira N, Lyles C, Radcliffe K, Pasick RJ, Sawaya G, Sarkar U, Centola D. Social Media as a Tool to Promote Health Awareness: Results from an Online Cervical Cancer Prevention Study. J Cancer Educ. 2019 Aug;34(4):819-822. doi: 10.1007/s13187-018-1379-8. PMID: 29948924; PMCID: PMC6289895.
Le GM, Radcliffe K, Lyles C, Lyson HC, Wallace B, Sawaya G, Pasick R, Centola D, Sarkar U. Perceptions of cervical cancer prevention on Twitter uncovered by different sampling strategies. PLoS One. 2019 Feb 11;14(2):e0211931. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0211931. PMID: 30742683; PMCID: PMC6370210.
Zhang J, Le G, Larochelle D, Pasick R, Sawaya GF, Sarkar U, Centola D. Facts or stories? How to use social media for cervical cancer prevention: A multi-method study of the effects of sender type and content type on increased message sharing. Prev Med. 2019 Sep;126:105751. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2019.105751. Epub 2019 Jun 19. PMID: 31226342; PMCID: PMC6697580.
Cherian R, Westbrook M, Ramo D, Sarkar U. Representations of Codeine Misuse on Instagram: Content Analysis. JMIR Public Health Surveill. 2018 Mar 20;4(1):e22. doi: 10.2196/publichealth.8144. PMID: 29559422; PMCID: PMC5883072.
Sarkar U, Le GM, Lyles CR, Ramo D, Linos E, Bibbins-Domingo K. Using Social Media to Target Cancer Prevention in Young Adults: Viewpoint. J Med Internet Res. 2018 Jun 5;20(6):e203. doi: 10.2196/jmir.8882. PMID: 29871850; PMCID: PMC6008512.
Lyles CR, Godbehere A, Le G, El Ghaoui L, Sarkar U. Applying Sparse Machine Learning Methods to Twitter: Analysis of the 2012 Change in Pap Smear Guidelines. A Sequential Mixed-Methods Study. JMIR Public Health Surveill. 2016 Jun 10;2(1):e21. doi: 10.2196/publichealth.5308. PMID: 27288093; PMCID: PMC4920957.
Chan B, Lopez A, Sarkar U. The Canary in the Coal Mine Tweets: Social Media Reveals Public Perceptions of Non-Medical Use of Opioids. PLoS One. 2015 Aug 7;10(8):e0135072. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0135072. PMID: 26252774; PMCID: PMC4529203.