Shouq A Sadah|Moloud Shahbazi|Matthew Wiley|Vagelis Hristidis
A Study of the Demographics of Web-Based Health-Related Social Media Users
University of California, Riverside|University of California, Riverside|University of California, Riverside|University of California, Riverside
background rapid spread webbased social media recent years impacted patients share healthrelated information however little work studied demographics users objective aim study demographics users participate healthrelated webbased social outlets identify possible links health care disparities methods analyze compare three different types healthrelated social outlets 1 general webbased social networks twitter google 2 drug review websites 3 health web forums focus following demographic attributes age gender ethnicity location writing level build evaluate domainspecific classifiers infer missing data possible estimated demographic statistics compared various baselines internet social networks usage population results found 1 drug review websites health web forums dominated female users 2 participants healthrelated social outlets generally older exception 65 years bracket 3 blacks underrepresented healthrelated social networks 4 users areas better access health care participate webbased healthrelated social outlets 5 writing level users healthrelated social outlets significantly lower reading level population conclusions identified interesting actionable disparities participation various demographic groups various types healthrelated social outlets disparities significantly distinct disparities internet usage general social outlets participation