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Hot Topics of the Day are picked by experts to capture the latest information and publications on public health genomics and precision health for various diseases and health topics. Sources include published scientific literature, reviews, blogs and popular press articles.

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89 hot topic(s) found with the query "Social media"

Curious about your cancer risk, or if your child might develop learning disabilities? There’s a genetic test for that—but it may not be accurate
E Prater, Fortune Well, July 2023 (Posted: Aug 18, 2023 8AM)

A new wave of expanded genetics tests is flooding the market—social media feeds, at least—and complicating matters. Some promise to predict the gender of your baby, your child’s predisposition to learning disabilities, how specific medications might interact with your genetics, and even how prone you are to developing ear wax. Not all information provided by such tests is useful or accurate. And not all of the accurate information can be acted upon, experts caution. Often, disease can’t be prevented.

Genomic testing for rare disease diagnosis—where are we now, and where should we be heading? The reflections of a behavioural scientist
C Lewis, EJHG, August 1, 2023 (Posted: Aug 01, 2023 9AM)

Much work has been done by behavioral scientists over recent years to understand patients’ and parents’ motivations for undergoing genomic testing. Findings highlight patients’ and parents’ desire: for a diagnosis to access treatments, for access to clinical trials and/or disease-specific screening; to receive a clear prognosis and information about recurrence risk; to understand the etiology of the condition and receive a reason “why” it occurred; to gain relief from guilt, for example, that it was not caused by something the mother did during her pregnancy (a concern I frequently come across); to gain legitimacy for the patient’s behavior and/or appearance; and to enable them the opportunity to connect with others through support groups and social media.

Public Health Genetics and Genomics Week Toolkit
PHGW, May 16-20, 2023 (Posted: Apr 21, 2023 9AM)

The National Coordinating Center for the Regional Genetics Network (NCC) is proud to host Public Health Genetics and Genomics Week (PHGW)! The goal of PHGW is to increase awareness and celebrate the efforts of public health genetics and genomics. Help celebrate Public Health Genetics and Genomics Week by using our toolkit below! Find ways to promote the week by downloading a Zoom background, social media graphics, email signature banners, and much more.

National DNA Day 20th Anniversary Symposium
NHGRI, April 2023 Brand (Posted: Apr 04, 2023 6AM)

On National DNA Day this year, the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) will host a symposium to commemorate two special milestones: the 20th anniversary of the Human Genome Project’s completion and the 70th anniversary of the discovery of the DNA double helix. Join us to explore the evolution and future of genomics research, learn about the greater impacts of genomics on society and discover the wide array of careers in genetics and genomics — from scientists to social media specialists!

Opioid death projections with AI-based forecasts using social media language.
Matthew Matero et al. NPJ digital medicine 2023 3 (1) 35 (Posted: Mar 08, 2023 6PM)

Here, we develop and evaluate, TROP (Transformer for Opiod Prediction), a model for community-specific trend projection that uses community-specific social media language along with past opioid-related mortality data to predict future changes in opioid-related deaths. TOP builds on recent advances in sequence modeling, namely transformer networks, to use changes in yearly language on Twitter and past mortality to project the following year’s mortality rates by county. Trained over five years and evaluated over the next two years TROP demonstrated state-of-the-art accuracy in predicting future county-specific opioid trends.

A deep-learning algorithm to classify skin lesions from mpox virus infection.
Alexander H Thieme et al. Nature medicine 2023 3 (Posted: Mar 03, 2023 9AM)

We assembled a dataset of 139,198 skin lesion images, split into training/validation and testing cohorts, comprising non-MPXV images (n?=?138,522) from eight dermatological repositories and MPXV images (n?=?676) from the scientific literature, news articles, social media and a prospective cohort of the Stanford University Medical Center (n?=?63 images from 12 patients, all male). In the validation and testing cohorts, the sensitivity of the MPXV-CNN was 0.83 and 0.91, the specificity was 0.965 and 0.898 and the area under the curve was 0.967 and 0.966, respectively.

Digital Omicron Detection using Unscripted Voice Samples from Social Media
J Anibal et al, MEDRXIV, December 22, 2022 (Posted: Dec 22, 2022 8AM)

We mined YouTube to collect voice data from individuals with self- declared positive COVID-19 tests during time periods in which Omicron was the predominant variant, while also sampling non-Omicron COVID-19 variants, other upper respiratory infections (URI), and healthy subjects. The resulting dataset was used to train a DenseNet model to detect the Omicron variant from voice changes. Our model achieved 0.85/0.80 sensitivity/specificity in separating Omicron samples from healthy samples and 0.76/0.70 sensitivity/specificity in separating Omicron samples from symptomatic non-COVID samples.

Using Social Media to Help Understand Long COVID Patient-Reported Health Outcomes: A Natural Language Processing Approach
E Dolatabadi et al, MEDRXIV, December 16, 2022 (Posted: Dec 17, 2022 9AM)

We use Transformer-based BERT models to extract and normalize long COVID Symptoms and Conditions (SyCo) from English posts on Twitter and Reddit. Furthermore, we estimate the occurrence and co-occurrence of SyCo terms at any point or across time and locations. Finally, we compare the extracted health outcomes with human annotations and highly utilized clinical outcomes grounded in the medical literature. The top three most commonly occurring groups of long COVID symptoms are systemic (such as "Fatigue"), neuropsychiatric (such as "Anxiety" and "Brain fog"), and respiratory (such as "Shortness of breath"). Regarding the co-occurring symptoms, the pair of "Fatigue & Headaches" is most common

COVID-19 Scientific Publications From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, January 2020–January 2022
E Meites et al, Public Health Reports, November, 2022 (Posted: Nov 28, 2022 10AM)

During the first 2 years of the agency’s pandemic response, CDC authors contributed to 1044 unique COVID-19 scientific publications in 208 journals. Publication topics included testing (n = 853, 82%); prevention strategies (n = 658, 63%); natural history, transmission, breakthrough infections, and reinfections (n = 587, 56%); vaccines (n = 567, 54%); health equity (n = 308, 30%); variants (n = 232, 22%); and post–COVID-19 conditions (n = 44, 4%). Publications were cited 40?427 times and received 81?921 news reports and 1?058?893 social media impressions. As the pandemic evolved, CDC adapted to address new scientific questions, including vaccine effectiveness, safety, and access; viral variants, including Delta and Omicron; and health equity.

Digital Omicron Detection using Unscripted Voice Samples from Social Media
J Anibal, et al, MEDRXIV, October 6, 2022 (Posted: Oct 07, 2022 7AM)

Can Smartphones Help Predict Suicide?
E Barry, NY Times, September 30, 2022 (Posted: Oct 01, 2022 7AM)

In the field of mental health, few new areas generate as much excitement as machine learning, which uses computer algorithms to better predict human behavior. There is, at the same time, exploding interest in biosensors that can track a person’s mood in real time, factoring in music choices, social media posts, facial expression and vocal expression. A unique research project is tracking hundreds of people at risk for suicide, using data from smartphones and wearable biosensors to identify periods of high danger — and intervene.

Healthcare Professionals' Genomics Education Week
NHGRI, June 6-10, 2022 Brand (Posted: Jun 07, 2022 11AM)

Genomics is becoming an increasingly important part of patient care, but healthcare providers may not be aware of the genomics education resources available. The National Human Genome Research Institute and its partners are organizing a social media campaign from June 6-10, 2022, that focuses on healthcare provider genomics education. This initiative will include panel discussions, webinars, Twitter chats and Q&As.

Machine learning of language use on Twitter reveals weak and non-specific predictions
SW Kelley et al, NPJ Digital Medicine, March 25, 2022 (Posted: Mar 26, 2022 3PM)

Depressed individuals use language differently than healthy controls and it has been proposed that social media posts can be used to identify depression. Much of the evidence behind this claim relies on indirect measures of mental health and few studies have tested if these language features are specific to depression versus other aspects of mental health. We analysed the Tweets of 1006 participants who completed questionnaires assessing symptoms of depression and 8 other mental health conditions.

March 24 is Lipoprotein(a) Awareness Day
Family Heart Foundation, March 2022 (Posted: Mar 24, 2022 0PM)

The Family Heart Foundation established Lipoprotein(a) Awareness Day to raise awareness worldwide of elevated Lipoprotein(a), also known as Lp(a). On March 24, we will use the power of our voices so that everyone understands why they should #KnowLpa. Through national and local media, as well as social media engagement, we will draw attention to this important inherited disorder and encourage everyone to join the movement.

Global evidence of expressed sentiment alterations during the COVID-19 pandemic
J Wang et al Nature Human Behav, March 17,2022 (Posted: Mar 18, 2022 7AM)

Using 654 million geotagged social media posts in over 100 countries, covering 74% of world population, coupled with state-of-the-art natural language processing techniques, we develop a global dataset of expressed sentiment indices to track national- and subnational-level affective states on a daily basis. We present two motivating applications using data from the first wave of COVID-19 (from 1 January to 31 May 2020). First, using regression discontinuity design, we provide consistent evidence that COVID-19 outbreaks caused steep declines in expressed sentiment globally, followed by asymmetric, slower recoveries. Second, applying synthetic control methods, we find moderate to no effects of lockdown policies on expressed sentiment, with large heterogeneity across countries.

Myocarditis after COVID-19 mRNA vaccination: clinical observations and potential mechanisms
S Heymans et al, Nature Rev Cardiology, December 2021 (Posted: Dec 12, 2021 9AM)

The risk of acute myocarditis associated with COVID-19 mRNA vaccination has garnered intense (social) media attention. However, myocarditis after COVID-19 mRNA vaccination is rare and usually resolves within days or weeks. Moreover, the risks of hospitalization and death associated with COVID-19 are greater than the risk associated with COVID-19 vaccination. Therefore, COVID-19 vaccination should be recommended in adolescents and adults.

Show us the Data: Global COVID-19 Wastewater Monitoring Efforts, Equity, and Gaps
CC Naughton et al, MEDRXIV, November 28, 2021 (Posted: Nov 29, 2021 9AM)

Unlike COVID-19 case and mortality data, there was not a global dashboard to track wastewater monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 RNA worldwide. This study provides a one year review of the COVIDPoops19 global dashboard of universities, sites, and countries monitoring SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater. Methods to assemble the dashboard combined standard literature review, direct submissions, and daily, social media keyword searches. Over 200 universities, 1,000 sites, and 55 countries with 59 dashboards monitor wastewater for SARS-CoV-2 RNA. However, monitoring is primarily in high-income countries (65 percent) with less access to this valuable tool in low and middle income countries (35 percent).

Family Health History Social Media Campaign
NHGRI, November 2021 (Posted: Nov 11, 2021 2PM)

November is Family Health History Awareness Month! To celebrate, the National Human Genome Research Institute will host several engagement events over social media on Wednesday, November 17. We encourage you and your organizations to join in and help amplify our Institute’s mission to increase genomic literacy and family health history awareness.

Effects of a large-scale social media advertising campaign on holiday travel and COVID-19 infections: a cluster randomized controlled trial
E Breza et al, Nature Medicine, August 19, 2021 (Posted: Aug 20, 2021 8AM)

We conducted a randomized controlled trial of the effect of a Facebook advertising campaign consisting of short videos recorded by doctors and nurses to encourage users to stay at home for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. We found that social media messages recorded by health professionals before the winter holidays in the United States led to a significant reduction in holiday travel and subsequent COVID-19 infections.

Opportunities and pitfalls of social media research in rare genetic diseases: a systematic review.
Miller Emily G et al. Genetics in medicine : official journal of the American College of Medical Genetics 2021 7 (Posted: Jul 21, 2021 8AM)

Most studies were observational (n = 114, 95.0%) and cross-sectional (n = 107, 89.2%), and more than half (n = 69, 57.5%) utilized only surveys. Only 101 rare diseases were included across all studies. Participant demographics, when reported, were predominantly female (70.1% ± 22.5%) and white (85.0% ± 11.0%) adult patients and caregivers. Despite its potential benefits in rare disease research, the use of social media is still methodologically limited and the participants reached may not be representative of the rare disease population by gender, race, age, or rare disease type.

Healthcare Provider Genomics Education Resources
NHGRI, June 2021 Brand (Posted: Jun 08, 2021 7AM)

Healthcare provider (HCPs) will increasingly use knowledge about genomics to meet the needs of their patients. This page provides resources targeted to HCPs and their educators. NHGRI and its partners are organizing a social media campaign from June 7-11, 2021.

2021 Healthcare Provider Genomics Education Week
NHGRI, June, 2021 Brand (Posted: Jun 02, 2021 9AM)

Genomics is becoming an increasingly important part of patient care, but healthcare providers may not be aware of the genomics education resources available. The National Human Genome Research Institute and its partners are organizing a social media campaign from June 7-11, 2021.

Monitoring global trends in Covid-19 vaccination intention and confidence: a social media-based deep learning study
X Zhou et al, MEDRXIV, April 24, 2021 (Posted: Apr 25, 2021 7AM)

The proportion of tweets indicating intent to accept Covid-19 vaccination declined from 64.49% on March to 39.54% on September 2020, and then began to recover, reaching 52.56% in early 2021. This recovery in vaccine acceptance was largely driven by the US and European region, whereas other regions experienced the declining trends in 2020. Intent to accept and confidence of Covid-19 vaccination were relatively high in South-East Asia, Eastern Mediterranean, and Western Pacific regions, but low in American, European, and African regions.

Can Social Media Data Be Utilized to Enhance Early Warning: Retrospective Analysis of the U.S. Covid-19 Pandemic
L Li et al, MEDRXIV< April 17, 2021 (Posted: Apr 18, 2021 8AM)

Social media language of healthcare super-utilizers
SC Guntuku et al, NPJ Digital Medicine, March 25, 2021 (Posted: Mar 26, 2021 8AM)

Super-utilizers were more likely to post about confusion and negativity (D?=?.65, 95% CI-[.38, .95]), self-reflection (D = .63 [.35, .91]), avoidance (D?=?.62 [.34, .90]), swearing (D?=?.52 [.24, .79]), sleep (D?=?.60 [.32, .88]), seeking help and attention (D?=?.61 [.33, .89]), psychosomatic symptoms, (D?=?.49 [.22, .77]), self-agency (D?=?.56 [.29, .85]), anger (D?=?.51, [.24, .79]), stress (D?=?.46, [.19, .73]), and lonely expressions (D?=?.44, [.17, .71]).

Connecticut Uses Social Media to Engage Long-term Care Residents- States continue to find COVID-19-safe ways to maintain communication with citizens
CDC, March 2021 Brand (Posted: Mar 20, 2021 9AM)

A machine learning approach predicts future risk to suicidal ideation from social media data.
Roy Arunima et al. NPJ digital medicine 2020 May 3(1) 78 (Posted: Feb 23, 2021 9AM)

Our objective was to generate an algorithm termed "Suicide Artificial Intelligence Prediction Heuristic (SAIPH)" capable of predicting future risk to suicidal thought by analyzing publicly available Twitter data. We trained a series of neural networks on Twitter data queried against suicide associated psychological constructs including burden, stress, loneliness, hopelessness, insomnia, depression, and anxiety. We used 512,526 tweets from N?=?283 suicidal ideation (SI) cases and 3,518,494 tweets from 2655 controls.

Public Health Messaging in an Era of Social Media
RM Marchant et al, JAMA, January 4, 2021 (Posted: Jan 05, 2021 8AM)

Digital platforms are powerful yet underused tools for engaging the public and should be considered essential for public health preparedness, response, and recovery. This Viewpoint explores 4 strategies to advance public health messaging during this and future public health emergencies: deploying countermeasures for misinformation, surveillance of digital data to inform messaging, partnering with trusted messengers, and promoting equity through messaging.

Social Media Toolkit: COVID-19 & Mental Health
CDC, December 28, 2020 Brand (Posted: Dec 29, 2020 2PM)

Everyone reacts differently to stressful situations like COVID-19. You may feel anxiousness, anger, sadness, or overwhelmed. Find ways to reduce your stress to help yourself and the people you care about. Learn the common signs of stress. Make time to unwind and do activities you enjoy. Talk with family and friends by phone, text, or email.

Social Media Insights Into US Mental Health Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic. A Longitudinal Twitter Analysis (JANUARY-APRIL 2020)
D Valdez et al, MEDRXIV, December 10, 2020 (Posted: Dec 11, 2020 9AM)

COVID-19 One-Stop Shop Toolkits
CDC, November 2020 Brand (Posted: Nov 19, 2020 11AM)

Videos, Social Media, PSAs, Print Resources, Checklists, FAQs, and Web Resources. Find the tools you need to successfully communicate with your audiences.

Social media and smartphone app use predicts maintenance of physical activity during Covid-19 enforced isolation in psychiatric outpatients
A Norbury et al, MEDRXIV, October 30, 2020 (Posted: Oct 30, 2020 11AM)

Social Media Reveals Psychosocial Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic
K Saha et al, MEDRXIV, October 26, 2020 (Posted: Oct 28, 2020 8AM)

Viewing the covid-19 pandemic through the lens of social media
G McKenzie, BMJ Blog, October 12, 2020 (Posted: Oct 13, 2020 8AM)

Rare diseases band together toward change in research
C Ainsworth, Nature Medicine, October 7, 2020 (Posted: Oct 07, 2020 3PM)

Patients with rare diseases, and the scientists who study those diseases, were long inhibited by geographic sparsity. But the social-media age has made it much easier for them to band together to leverage their experience and push forward change.

Early warnings of COVID-19 outbreaks across Europe from social media?
M Lopreite et al, ARXIV, August 6, 2020 (Posted: Aug 09, 2020 0PM)

Can an Algorithm Predict the Pandemic’s Next Moves?
B Carey, NY Times, July 2, 2020 (Posted: Jul 03, 2020 10AM)

Researchers have developed a model that uses social-media and search data to forecast outbreaks of Covid-19 well before they occur.

Social media and smartphone app use predicts maintenance of physical activity during Covid-19 enforced isolation in psychiatric outpatients
A Norbury et al, MEDRXIV, June 28, 2020 (Posted: Jun 29, 2020 8AM)

Social media as a tool for scientific updating at the time of COVID pandemic
R Murri et al, MEDRXIV, June 14, 2020 (Posted: Jun 15, 2020 8AM)

How Social Media and 3D Printing Tackles the PPE Shortage during Covid - 19 Pandemic
N Vordos et al, MEDRXIV, June 8, 2020 (Posted: Jun 10, 2020 8AM)

A machine learning approach predicts future risk to suicidal ideation from social media data
A Roy, et al, NPJ Digital Medicine, May 26, 2020 (Posted: May 26, 2020 0PM)

Machine learning analysis of social media data represents a promising way to capture longitudinal environmental influences contributing to individual risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Our objective was to generate an algorithm capable of predicting future risk to suicidal thought by analyzing publicly available Twitter data.

Exploratory Analysis of Covid-19 Tweets using Topic Modeling, UMAP, and DiGraphs
C Ordun et al, ARXIV, May 6, 2020 (Posted: May 09, 2020 7AM)

Internet Search Patterns Reveal Clinical Course of Disease Progression for COVID-19 and Predict Pandemic Spread in 32 Countries
T Lu et al, MEDRXIV, May 6, 2020 (Posted: May 07, 2020 6AM)

There is a critical need for complementary surveillance approaches that can function at population-scale to inform public health decisions in real-time. Internet search patterns provide important advantages. We conducted a detailed global study of Internet search patterns related to COVID-19 symptoms in multiple languages across 32 countries on six continents

A Pandemic Moves Peer Review to Twitter- The coronavirus has transformed how scientific research findings are communicated. Is that good? Will the changes stick?
J Fox, Bloomberg News, May 5, 2020 (Posted: May 06, 2020 9AM)

Self-reported COVID-19 symptoms on Twitter: An analysis and a research resource
A Sarkeer et al, MEDRXIV, April 22, 2020 (Posted: Apr 22, 2020 7AM)

We identified 203 positive-tested users who reported 932 symptoms using 598 unique expressions. The most frequently-reported symptoms were fever/pyrexia (65%), cough (56%), body aches/pain (40%), headache (35%), fatigue (35%), and dyspnea (34%) amongst users who reported at least 1 symptom.

Assessing the risks of "infodemics" in response to COVID-19 epidemics
R Gallotti et al, MEDRXIV, April 11, 2020 (Posted: Apr 11, 2020 8AM)

We analyzed more than 100 millions Twitter messages posted worldwide in 64 languages during the epidemic emergency due to SARS-CoV-2 and classified the reliability of news diffused. We found that waves of unreliable and low-quality information anticipate the epidemic ones, exposing entire countries to irrational social behavior and serious threats for public health.

The Application of Internet-Based Sources for Public Health Surveillance (Infoveillance): Systematic Review.
Barros Joana M et al. Journal of medical Internet research 2020 Mar (3) e13680 (Posted: Mar 31, 2020 8AM)

Reviewing 162 publications, we determined infectious diseases to be the preferred case study (66.7%). Of the eight categories of Internet bases sources (search queries, social media, news, discussion forums, websites, web encyclopedia, and online obituaries), search queries and social media were applied in 95.1% (154/162) of the reviewed publications.

Methods in predictive techniques for mental health status on social media: a critical review
S Chancellor, NPJ Digital Medicine, March 24, 2020 (Posted: Mar 25, 2020 10AM)

Application of Twitter and web news mining in infectious disease surveillance systems and prospects for public health.
Jahanbin Kia et al. GMS hygiene and infection control 2019 14Doc19 (Posted: Feb 19, 2020 9AM)

Using Social Media to Track Geographic Variability in Language About Diabetes: Analysis of Diabetes-Related Tweets Across the United States.
Griffis Heather et al. JMIR diabetes 2020 Jan 5(1) e14431 (Posted: Feb 19, 2020 9AM)

Wuhan Coronavirus : Should we trust social media?
BMJ Global Health, January 30, 2020 (Posted: Jan 31, 2020 9AM)

Evaluating the Potential Role of Social Media in Preventive Health Care
RM Merchant, JAMA< January 10, 2020 (Posted: Jan 11, 2020 11AM)

A public health agenda for using social media in disease prevention: Closing gaps in our understanding of information, addressing misinformation, protection of social media data, & influencing difficult-to-access populations.

Social Media- and Internet-Based Disease Surveillance for Public Health.
Aiello Allison E et al. Annual review of public health 2020 Jan (Posted: Jan 08, 2020 8AM)

Untapped opportunities exist for integrating digital surveillance in public health. Current applications could be improved through better integration, validation, and clarity on rules surrounding ethical considerations. Promising developments include hybrid systems that couple traditional surveillance with data from search queries, social media and crowdsourcing.

Genetic apps: raising more questions than they answer?
T Burki, January 1, 2020 Lancet Digital Health (Posted: Jan 06, 2020 9AM)

How Twitter is changing medical research
N Wetsman, Nature Medicine, December 9, 2019 (Posted: Dec 10, 2019 8AM)

From online journal clubs to ‘tweetorials’ to conference updates, social media is changing the dissemination and discussion of biomedicine.

Advancing the Promise of Digital Technology and Social Media to Promote Population Health.
Allegrante John P et al. Health education & behavior : the official publication of the Society for Public Health Education 2019 Dec 46(2_suppl) 5-8 (Posted: Nov 26, 2019 8AM)

We launched the 2018 Summit because of the ubiquity of digital technology and reach of social media, it had become apparent to us that the time was right to bring greater focus to the promise that digital technology and social media hold for improving the public's health.

Predicting Current Juul use among Emerging Adults through Twitter Feeds
T Tran et al, MedRXIV, November 2019 (Posted: Nov 10, 2019 8AM)

Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing for Geolocation-Centric Monitoring and Characterization of Opioid-Related Social Media Chatter
A Sarker et al, JAMA Network Open, November 6, 2019 (Posted: Nov 07, 2019 8AM)

In this cross-sectional, population-based study of 9006 social media posts, automatic processing of social media data, combined with geospatial and temporal information, may provide close to real-time insights into the status and trajectory of the opioid epidemic.

Automatically Appraising the Credibility of Vaccine-Related Web Pages Shared on Social Media: A Twitter Surveillance Study.
Shah Zubair et al. Journal of medical Internet research 2019 Nov 21(11) e14007 (Posted: Nov 06, 2019 8AM)

Restaurants are using AI to listen in on social media. They want to know how you are feeling
M Harden, Stat News, October 2019 (Posted: Oct 28, 2019 3PM)

An important trend is the immediacy and virality of social media. One person on Twitter can report to the world in real-time the effects of a bad meal, potentially tanking the restaurant’s stock price before the company even knows what happened, or where the outbreak began.

Social Media as an Emerging Data Resource for Epidemiologic Research: Characteristics of Social Media Users and Non-users in the Nurses' Health Study II.
Kim Eric S et al. American journal of epidemiology 2019 Oct (Posted: Oct 16, 2019 9AM)

Mining social media for prescription medication abuse monitoring: a review and proposal for a data-centric framework.
Sarker Abeed et al. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA 2019 Oct (Posted: Oct 09, 2019 8AM)

Real-time flu tracking- By monitoring social media, scientists can monitor outbreaks as they happen.
C Schmidt, Nature Outlook, September 18, 2019 (Posted: Sep 19, 2019 9AM)

Powerful computational tools such as machine learning and a growing diversity of data streams — not just search queries and social media, but also cloud-based electronic health records and human mobility patterns inferred from census information — are making it increasingly possible to monitor the spread of flu through the population by following its digital signal.

Recent Advances in Using Natural Language Processing to Address Public Health Research Questions Using Social Media and ConsumerGenerated Data.
Conway Mike et al. Yearbook of medical informatics 2019 Aug 28(1) 208-217 (Posted: Aug 21, 2019 9AM)

Getting Social: Physicians Can Counteract Misinformation With an Online Presence.
Rubin Rita et al. JAMA 2019 Jul (Posted: Aug 01, 2019 8AM)

Physicians need to recognize that patients are getting much of their information about health care via social media, often from unreliable sources trying to sell questionable products. Instead of scoffing at Instagram and Twitter,physicians should regard the social media platforms as tools with which to inform patients and connect with colleagues.

Twitter mining using semi-supervised classification for relevance filtering in syndromic surveillance.
Edo-Osagie Oduwa et al. PloS one 2019 14(7) e0210689 (Posted: Jul 24, 2019 10AM)

Genetics research gets help from social media Read more at https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2019/06/19/genetics-research-gets-help-from-social-media/#uCBukguGyAKbFDcw.99
L Caroll, Star Online, June 19, 2019 (Posted: Jun 21, 2019 8AM)

Social Media Surveillance for Outbreak Projection via Transmission Models: Longitudinal Observational Study.
Safarishahrbijari Anahita et al. JMIR public health and surveillance 2019 May 5(2) e11615 (Posted: Jun 19, 2019 8AM)

Evaluating the predictability of medical conditions from social media posts.
Merchant Raina M et al. PloS one 2019 (6) e0215476 (Posted: Jun 18, 2019 8AM)

Researchers recruit more than 20,000 people for Facebook-based genomics project
S Sharadhar, Stat News, June 13, 2019 (Posted: Jun 14, 2019 9AM)

Genes for Good: Engaging the Public in Genetics Research via Social Media
K Brieger et al, AJHG, June 13, 2019 (Posted: Jun 13, 2019 1PM)

Social Media in the Age of the "New Polio".
Bove Riley et al. The New England journal of medicine 2019 Mar (13) 1195-1197 (Posted: Mar 28, 2019 8AM)

Partnering With Mommy Bloggers to Disseminate Breast Cancer Risk Information: Social Media Intervention.
Wright Kevin et al. Journal of medical Internet research 2019 Mar 21(3) e12441 (Posted: Mar 12, 2019 10AM)

"Before Facebook and before social media…we did not know anybody else that had this": parent perspectives on internet and social media use during the pediatric clinical genetic testing process.
Barton Krysta S et al. Journal of community genetics 2018 Dec (Posted: Jan 02, 2019 4PM)

Communication About Hereditary Cancers on Social Media: A Content Analysis of Tweets About Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer and Lynch Syndrome.
Allen Caitlin G et al. Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education 2018 Dec (Posted: Dec 09, 2018 4PM)

Science is social
Editorial, Nature Genetics, (Posted: Nov 30, 2018 8AM)

Have You Ever Googled a Patient or Been Friended by a Patient? Social Media Intersects the Practice of Genetic Counseling.
Omaggio NinaMarie F et al. Journal of genetic counseling 2018 Apr (2) 481-492 (Posted: Nov 25, 2018 9AM)

How Might the Genetics Profession Better Utilize Social Media.
Moore Rebekah A et al. Journal of genetic counseling 2018 Apr (2) 493-504 (Posted: Nov 25, 2018 8AM)

The Promise and Pitfalls of Facebook Advertising: a Genetic Counselor's Perspective.
Verbrugge Jennifer et al. Journal of genetic counseling 2018 Apr (2) 326-328 (Posted: Nov 25, 2018 8AM)

Digital health - a new medical cosmology? The case of 23andMe online genetic testing platform.
Saukko Paula et al. Sociology of health & illness 2018 Nov (8) 1312-1326 (Posted: Nov 25, 2018 8AM)

Social media interventions for precision public health: promises and risks
AG Dunn et al, npj Digital Medicine, September 2018 (Posted: Oct 22, 2018 9AM)

Twitter and Non-Elites: Interpreting Power Dynamics in the Life Story of the (#)BRCA Twitter Stream.
Vicari Stefania et al. Social media + society 2017 Sep 3(3) 2056305117733224 (Posted: Jan 03, 2018 10AM)

Using Social Media Data to Understand the Impact of Promotional Information on Laypeople's Discussions: A Case Study of Lynch Syndrome.
Bian Jiang et al. Journal of medical Internet research 2017 Dec 19(12) e414 (Posted: Dec 20, 2017 0PM)

Personal Stories of People Living with Deep Vein Thrombosis and Pulmonary Embolism
CDC Social Media Brand (Posted: May 17, 2017 2PM)

The Use of Social Media to Recruit Participants With Rare Conditions: Lynch Syndrome as an Example.
Burton-Chase Allison M et al. JMIR research protocols 2017 Jan 6(1) e12 (Posted: Jan 25, 2017 9AM)

Tess’s Tale: Social Media Catalyzes Rare Disease Diagnosis
Ricki Lewis, PLosS Blogs, September 17, 2015 (Posted: Sep 17, 2015 3PM)

Personal Stories of People Living with Thalassemia
CDC Social Media (Posted: May 05, 2015 10AM)

Behavioral insights on big data: using social media for predicting biomedical outcomes.
Young Sean D et al. Trends Microbiol. 2014 Nov (11) 601-2 (Posted: Feb 13, 2015 0PM)

Precision Medicine Trials for Cancer: A New Era
(Posted: Jan 11, 2014 11AM)

The following is the latest in a series of posts from senior NCI scientists and leaders on NCI?s Annual Plan and Budget Proposal for Fiscal Year 2017, which was officially submitted to the President on September 17, 2015. The proposal provides an overview of NCI?s priorities and key initiatives and the institute?s funding request for the President to consider in formulating his own Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 budget proposal. In this post, Jeff Abrams, M.D., and Nita Seibel, M.D., of NCI's Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis, discuss how precision medicine is influencing the design and conduct of NCI-supported clinical trials. Conventional cancer clinical trials have produced some remarkable results over the past decades, leading to progress against diseases like Hodgkin lymphoma, which was a nearly fatal cancer in adolescents and young adults a half century ago, and breast cancer, which mainly affects adults. However, those trials often required the recruitment of thousands of participants, took up to a decade to complete, and cost hundreds of millions of dollars per trial. Today, with significant advances in genomics, imaging, bioinformatics, and related disciplines, we are designing smaller, quicker, and smarter trials that incorporate the principal tenets of precision medicine. NCI is designing smaller, quicker, and smarter trials that incorporate the principal tenets of precision medicine. Credit: National Human Genome Research Institute In the past 2 years, NCI has launched a series of precision medicine trials, including two lung cancer trials, Lung-MAP and ALCHEMIST, and NCI-MATCH, which is enrolling patients 18 years of age or older with many cancer types, including rare cancers. In 2016, NCI plans to launch a pediatric version of MATCH. All three trials aptly illustrate how precision medicine is influencing how we conduct cancer research. For example, they all include an initial screening step to determine which mutation (or mutations) may be driving an individual patient?s cancer. Next-generation genomic sequencing and analysis is then performed to determine if a patient?s tumor has one or more mutations that align with approved or investigational targeted therapies. This screening step is extremely important because it will be used to determine patient treatment assignment. For example, the screening arm of ALCHEMIST, which is enrolling patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer that has been treated surgically, will screen 6,000 to 8,000 patients to determine whether their tumors have mutations in the ALK or EGFR genes. Patients with ALK mutations will be assigned to a clinical trial testing an ALK inhibitor, and those with EGFR mutations will be assigned to a clinical trial testing an EGFR inhibitor. NCI-MATCH also requires a fresh biopsy sample of patients' tumors, which helps to ensure that the sequencing results more accurately reflect the tumor characteristics after exposure to standard treatment, in contrast to samples taken before treatment was given. In addition, because NCI-MATCH has already enrolled nearly 800 patients in just a few months, new enrollments have been halted temporarily while study leaders analyze results from these initial patients. This ?pause? in the trial will allow more mutations and targeted drugs to be added to the trial when it reopens, which will allow NCI-MATCH to address a wider variety of cancer types. Precision medicine trials can also be more nimble than most conventional trials. Both Lung-MAP and ALCHEMIST, for instance, are being amended to include new treatment arms that will assign patients whose tumors lack a mutation to receive immunotherapy drugs. These precision medicine trials present physicians and patients with new issues to consider regarding genetic testing in general. Patients participating in NCI-MATCH and Lung-MAP will be surveyed about their knowledge and preferences regarding genetic testing. It will be important to determine how well patients understand the difference between germline mutations (mutations that can be transmitted to children) and somatic mutations (mutations that are specific to the tumor and are not transmissible to children). We are also making important strides toward applying precision medicine in pediatric trials. The NCI Pediatric MATCH trial will be conducted nationwide and led by NCI and the Children?s Oncology Group (COG). Pediatric MATCH will provide a tremendous opportunity to test molecularly targeted therapies in children and adolescents with recurrent or treatment-resistant solid tumors (including lymphomas)?patients who usually have few other treatment options. Although Pediatric MATCH will be similar to the adult version of NCI-MATCH in design, there will be some differences. The genetic landscape of childhood cancer is far less complex than that of tumors that occur in adults. Childhood tumors contain far fewer genetic mutations than adult tumors, and many mutations that are seen in adult cancers are not detected in pediatric cancers. Therefore, the types of agents included in Pediatric MATCH may differ from those in the adult NCI-MATCH. When interesting results are seen with an agent in Pediatric MATCH, that agent can go on to other trials for its further development. It?s important to stress that not every cancer clinical trial will require such large-scale changes. Large conventional trials still have a valuable role to play, for example, for head-to-head comparisons of therapies with proven efficacy against a specific cancer or cancer subtype, or for testing combinations of therapies. We are already seeing precision medicine trials offer increased flexibility and efficiency, with the potential to more rapidly influence patient care. And as we learn more about how to optimally conduct these trials, our belief is that we will see even more rapid advances in the coming years. Social Media Event We encourage you to leave a comment below with your thoughts and questions about precision oncology trials. We also encourage you to read the Annual Plan and Budget Proposal and the remaining blog posts in this series. Cancer


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