Yulin Hswen

County-level assessment of United States kindergarten vaccination rates for measles mumps rubella (MMR) for the 2014–2015 school year

United States kindergarten measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination rates are typically reported at the state level by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The lack of local MMR data prevents identification of areas with low vaccination rates that would be vulnerable to the spread of disease. We collected county-level vaccination rates for the 2014-2015 school year with the objective of identifying these regions. We requested county-level kindergarten vaccination data from state health departments, and mapped these data to visualize geographic patterns in achievement of the 95% MMR vaccination target. We aggregated the county-level data to the state level for comparison against CDC state estimates. We also analyzed the relationship of MMR vaccination level with county-level and state-level poverty (using U.S. census data), using both a national mixed model with state as a random effect, and individual linear regression models by state. We received county vaccination data from 43 states. The median kindergarten MMR vaccination rate was 96.0% (IQR 89-98) across all counties, however, we estimated that 48.4% of the represented counties had vaccination rates below 95%. Our state estimates closely reflected CDC values. Nationally, every 10% increase in under-18 county poverty was associated with a 0.24% increase in MMR vaccination rates (95% CI: -0.07%; 0.54%), but the direction of this relationship varied by state. We found that county data can reveal vaccination trends that are unobservable from state-level data, but we also discovered that the current availability of county-level data is inadequate. Our findings can be used by state health departments to identify target areas for vaccination programs.

Exploring online communication about cigarette smoking among Twitter users who self-identify as having schizophrenia

Novel approaches are needed to address elevated tobacco use among people with schizophrenia. This exploratory study examined the frequency, timing, and type of communication about tobacco-related content on Twitter among users who self-identify as having schizophrenia compared with users from the general population. Over a 200-day period from January to July 2016, Twitter users who self-identify as having a schizophrenia spectrum disorder (n = 203) and a randomly selected group of general population control users (n = 173) posted 1,544,122 tweets. Communication frequency did not differ between groups. Tweets containing tobacco-related keywords were extracted. Twitter users with schizophrenia posted significantly more tweets containing any tobacco-related terms (mean = 3.74; SD = 16.3) compared with control users (mean = 0.82; SD = 1.8). A significantly greater proportion of Twitter users with schizophrenia (45%; n = 92) posted tweets containing any tobacco terms compared with control users (30%; n = 52). Schizophrenia users showed significantly greater odds of tweeting about tobacco compared with control users (OR = 1.99; 95% CI 1.29-3.07). These findings suggest that online communication about tobacco may parallel real world trends of elevated tobacco use observed among people with schizophrenia. By showing that Twitter users who self-identify as having schizophrenia discuss tobacco-related content online, popular social media could inform smoking cessation efforts targeting this at-risk group.

A Preliminary Evaluation of a School-Based Media Education and Reduction Intervention.

While media education and reduction programs have been proposed to prevent adverse health and academic outcomes related to heavy electronic media use among school-aged children, few have been formally piloted and evaluated. We used a quasi-experimental design to evaluate the effectiveness of Take the Challenge (TtC), a school-based media education/reduction program for the primary prevention of sleep deprivation, dysfunctional social-emotional behaviors, and poor academic performance. Sixth- to eighth-grade students at a rural Midwestern U.S. middle school received the TtC program, while a similar school in the same district served as the comparison group. Health-related and academic measures were collected from students and teachers at both schools before and after the intervention. The primary outcome measure was student-reported electronic media use (television, video games, Internet). Secondary measures included student health behaviors (student-reported sleep, exercise, and outdoor play) and academic activities (teacher-reported homework and classroom performance). Compared to the comparison group, students receiving TtC slept more and reduced television viewing, background television time, after-school video gaming, and weekend Internet use. Teachers reported increases in the extent to which TtC students completed homework assignments and stayed on task in the classroom. Well-designed school-based programs such as TtC can reduce electronic media use among middle-school children and improve related health and academic outcomes.

Investigating inequities in hospital care among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals using social media

RATIONALE Persons who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) face health inequities due to unwarranted discrimination against their sexual orientation or identity. An important contributor to LGBT health disparities is the inequitable or substandard care that LGBT individuals receive from hospitals. OBJECTIVE To investigate inequities in hospital care among LGBT patients using the popular social media platform Twitter. METHOD This study examined a dataset of Twitter communications (tweets) collected from February 2015 to May 2017. The tweets mentioned Twitter handles for hospitals (i.e., usernames for hospitals) and LGBT related terms. The topics discussed were explored to develop an LGBT position index referring to whether the hospital appears supportive or not supportive of LGBT rights. Results for each hospital were then compared to the Healthcare Equality Index (HEI), an established index to evaluate equity of hospital care towards LGBT patients. RESULTS In total, 1856 tweets mentioned LGBT terms representing 653 unique hospitals. Of these hospitals, 189 (28.9%) were identified as HEI leaders. Hospitals in the Northeast showed significantly greater support towards LGBT issues compared to hospitals in the Midwest. Hospitals deemed as HEI leaders had higher LGBT position scores compared to non-HEI leaders (p = 0.042), when controlling for hospital size and location. CONCLUSIONS This exploratory study describes a novel approach to monitoring LGBT hospital care. While these initial findings should be interpreted cautiously, they can potentially inform practices to improve equity of care and efforts to address health disparities among gender minority groups.

Online Communication about Depression and Anxiety among Twitter Users with Schizophrenia: Preliminary Findings to Inform a Digital Phenotype Using Social Media

Digital technologies hold promise for supporting the detection and management of schizophrenia. This exploratory study aimed to generate an initial understanding of whether patterns of communication about depression and anxiety on popular social media among individuals with schizophrenia are consistent with offline representations of the illness. From January to July 2016, posts on Twitter were collected from a sample of Twitter users who self-identify as having a schizophrenia spectrum disorder (n = 203) and a randomly selected sample of control users (n = 173). Frequency and timing of communication about depression and anxiety were compared between groups. In total, the groups posted n = 1,544,122 tweets and users had similar characteristics. Twitter users with schizophrenia showed significantly greater odds of tweeting about depression compared with control users (OR = 2.69; 95% CI 1.76–4.10), and significantly greater odds of tweeting about anxiety compared with control users (OR = 1.81; 95% CI 1.20–2.73). This study offers preliminary insights that Twitter users with schizophrenia may express elevated symptoms of depression and anxiety in their online posts, which is consistent with clinical characteristics of schizophrenia observed in offline settings. Social media platforms could further our understanding of schizophrenia by informing a digital phenotype and may afford new opportunities to support early illness detection.

Using Twitter to Examine Web-Based Patient Experience Sentiments in the United States: Longitudinal Study

Background There are documented differences in access to health care across the United States. Previous research indicates that Web-based data regarding patient experiences and opinions of health care are available from Twitter. Sentiment analyses of Twitter data can be used to examine differences in patient views of health care across the United States. Objective The objective of our study was to provide a characterization of patient experience sentiments across the United States on Twitter over a 4-year period. Methods Using data from Twitter, we developed a set of 4 software components to automatically label and examine a database of tweets discussing patient experience. The set includes a classifier to determine patient experience tweets, a geolocation inference engine for social data, a modified sentiment classifier, and an engine to determine if the tweet is from a metropolitan or nonmetropolitan area in the United States. Using the information retrieved, we conducted spatial and temporal examinations of tweet sentiments at national and regional levels. We examined trends in the time of the day and that of the week when tweets were posted. Statistical analyses were conducted to determine if any differences existed between the discussions of patient experience in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas. Results We collected 27.3 million tweets between February 1, 2013 and February 28, 2017, using a set of patient experience-related keywords; the classifier was able to identify 2,759,257 tweets labeled as patient experience. We identified the approximate location of 31.76% (876,384/2,759,257) patient experience tweets using a geolocation classifier to conduct spatial analyses. At the national level, we observed 27.83% (243,903/876,384) positive patient experience tweets, 36.22% (317,445/876,384) neutral patient experience tweets, and 35.95% (315,036/876,384) negative patient experience tweets. There were slight differences in tweet sentiments across all regions of the United States during the 4-year study period. We found the average sentiment polarity shifted toward less negative over the study period across all the regions of the United States. We observed the sentiment of tweets to have a lower negative fraction during daytime hours, whereas the sentiment of tweets posted between 8 pm and 10 am had a higher negative fraction. Nationally, sentiment scores for tweets in metropolitan areas were found to be more extremely negative and mildly positive compared with tweets in nonmetropolitan areas. This result is statistically significant (P<.001). Tweets with extremely negative sentiments had a medium effect size (d=0.34) at the national level. Conclusions This study presents methodologies for a deeper understanding of Web-based discussion related to patient experience across space and time and demonstrates how Twitter can provide a unique and unsolicited perspective from users on the health care they receive in the United States.

Engaging African American teens in co-creating and disseminating social media based HIV prevention messages

Social media is a popular online activity among African American teens, and may afford opportunities for delivering HIV prevention initiatives to this at-risk group. In this case report, we describe the development and pilot testing of a program using a participatory method to engage African American teens in actively designing, co-creating, and disseminating HIV prevention messages using YouTube, a popular video sharing social media platform. We conducted two sequential formative pilot evaluations. In the first pilot study conducted in 2013 we employed a participatory research approach to develop and test a curriculum with emphasis on education, use of social media, and video production and development. During the second pilot study in 2014, we delivered the program to a group of teens and obtained feedback to further refine our curriculum. We enrolled 17 teens, ages 16–18, with 5 in the first pilot and 12 in the second pilot. Participating teens independently created and uploaded peer-generated HIV prevention videos to YouTube. Overall, teens across both pilot studies reported high satisfaction with the session content. This program was locally developed and required few resources, and emerged as feasible and something that the community center would like to continue to deliver. Employing a participatory approach for co-creating social media-based content to target HIV-related health behaviors may appeal to this generation’s tech savvy youth, and can potentially inform future efforts for reaching at-risk teens.