Social networks, including online communities, could provide both the tools to track seasonal illnesses before they peak and the support needed to improve health, according to new studies, the New York Times reports.
Tracking the Flu With EHRs
To follow the spread of the H1N1 virus at Harvard University, researchers monitored groups of friends and individuals chosen randomly.
The scientists tracked the health of the 744 participating undergraduates using information from their electronic health records. Tracking EHRs allowed the researchers to determine which students visited the campus’s health care service with flu-like symptoms.
The group of friends contracted the flu about two weeks before the group of randomly selected participants.
According to the study authors, monitoring disease trends on social networks can identify the leading edge of a disease outbreak before it surfaces among the general population.
The researchers said that this method could be used to detect trends in the spread of the flu better than current flu-tracking methods used by CDC (Singer, New York Times, 9/18).
Nicholas Christakis, lead author of the study, said, “By simply asking members of the random group to name friends, and then tracking and comparing both groups, we can predict epidemics before they strike the population at large” (Versel, Fierce Health IT, 9/20).
The study was published in the journal PLoS One.
Online Health Community
In related news, Damon Centola — a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — conducted his own experiment on social networks and health.
He established an online forum where participants in one group were matched with fellow members called “health buddies,” while individuals in a separate group did not have any structured interaction.
The health buddies group received e-mails about the activities of their fellow community members. This group was better at encouraging its members to participate in health forums online than the group with the random social network.
Centola said the study shows that facilitating connections among individuals could provide enough social reinforcement to encourage healthy behaviors.
Centola published his findings in this month’s edition of the journal Science (New York Times, 9/18).
Source: iHealthBeat
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