Open AccessCommunicating Genetics and Smoking Through Social Media: Are We There Yet?
Author(s) -
Sylviane de Viron,
L. Suzanne Suggs,
Angela Brand,
Herman Van Oyen
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
jmir. journal of medical internet research/journal of medical internet research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.446
H-Index - 142
eISSN - 1439-4456
pISSN - 1438-8871
DOI - 10.2196/jmir.2653
Subject(s) - social media , publishing , information dissemination , internet privacy , dissemination , world wide web , information source (mathematics) , the internet , psychology , computer science , political science , telecommunications , statistics , mathematics , law
Background Social media is a recent source of health information that could disseminate new scientific research, such as the genetics of smoking. Objective The objectives were (1) to evaluate the availability of genetic information about smoking on different social media platforms (ie, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter) and (2) to assess the type and the content of the information displayed on the social media as well as the profile of people publishing this information. Methods We screened posts on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter with the terms “smoking” and “genetic” at two time points (September 18, 2012, and May 7, 2013). The first 100 posts were reviewed for each media for the time points. Google was searched during Time 2 as an indicator of available information on the Web and the other social media that discussed genetics and smoking. The source of information, the country of the publisher, characteristics of the posts, and content of the posts were extracted. Results On YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, 31, 0, and 84 posts, respectively, were included. Posts were mostly based on smoking-related diseases, referred to scientific publications, and were largely from the United States. From the Google search, most results were scientific databases. Six scientific publications referred to within the Google search were also retrieved on either YouTube or Twitter. Conclusions Despite the importance of public understanding of smoking and genetics, and the high use of social media, little information on this topic is actually present on social media. Therefore, there is a need to monitor the information that is there and to evaluate the population’s understanding of the information related to genetics and smoking that is displayed on social media.