Understanding the expression of loneliness on Twitter across age groups and genders.

Some individuals seek support around loneliness on social media forums. In this work, we aim to determine differences in the use of language by users-in different age groups and genders (female, male), who publish posts on Twitter expressing loneliness. We hypothesize that these differences in the use of language will reflect how these users express themselves and some of their support needs.

Reporting of Discrimination by Health Care Consumers Through Online Consumer Reviews.

Importance: Little is known about how discrimination in health care relates to inequities in hospital-based care because of limitations in the ability to measure discrimination. Consumer reviews offer a novel source of data to capture experiences of discrimination in health care settings.

Objective: To examine how health care consumers perceive and report discrimination through public consumer reviews.

Understanding user communication around loneliness on online forums.

Increasingly, individuals experiencing loneliness are seeking support on online forums-some of which focus specifically on discussions around loneliness (loneliness forums); loneliness may influence how these individuals communicate in other online forums not focused on loneliness (non-loneliness forums). In order to provide effective and appropriate online interventions around loneliness, it is important to understand how users who publish posts in a loneliness forum communicate in the loneliness forum and non-loneliness forums they belong to. In this paper, using language features, the following analyses are conducted: (1) Posts published on an online loneliness forum on Reddit, /r/Lonely are compared to posts (published by the same users and around the same time period) on two Reddit online forums i.

Evaluation of Online Consumer Reviews of Hospitals and Experiences of Racism Using Qualitative Methods.

This qualitative study examines online consumer reviews for experiences of racism in US hospitals among patients.

Understanding Communication in an Online Cancer Forum: Content Analysis Study.

Background: Cancer affects individuals, their family members, and friends, and increasingly, some of these individuals are turning to online cancer forums to express their thoughts/feelings and seek support such as asking cancer-related questions. The thoughts/feelings expressed and the support needed from these online forums may differ depending on if (1) an individual has or had cancer or (2) an individual is a family member or friend of an individual who has or had cancer; the language used in posts in these forums may reflect these differences.

Objective: Using natural language processing methods, we aim to determine the differences in the support needs and concerns expressed in posts published on an online cancer forum by (1) users who self-declare to have or had cancer compared with (2) users who self-declare to be family members or friends of individuals with or that had cancer.

Studying How Individuals Who Express the Feeling of Loneliness in an Online Loneliness Forum Communicate in a Nonloneliness Forum: Observational Study.

Background: Loneliness is a public health concern, and increasingly, individuals experiencing loneliness are seeking support on online forums, some of which focus on discussions around loneliness (loneliness forums). Some of these individuals may also seek support around loneliness on online forums not related to loneliness or well-being (nonloneliness forums). Hence, to design and implement appropriate and efficient online loneliness interventions, it is important to understand how individuals who express and seek support around loneliness on online loneliness forums communicate in nonloneliness forums; this could provide further insights into the support needs and concerns of these users.

Predicting Cardiovascular Risk Using Social Media Data: Performance Evaluation of Machine-Learning Models.

Background: Current atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) predictive models have limitations; thus, efforts are underway to improve the discriminatory power of ASCVD models.

Objective: We sought to evaluate the discriminatory power of social media posts to predict the 10-year risk for ASCVD as compared to that of pooled cohort risk equations (PCEs).

Methods: We consented patients receiving care in an urban academic emergency department to share access to their Facebook posts and electronic medical records (EMRs).

Association of Online Consumer Reviews of Skilled Nursing Facilities With Patient Rehospitalization Rates.

Importance: There are areas of skilled nursing facility (SNF) experience of importance to the public that are not currently included in public reporting initiatives on SNF quality. Whether patients, hospitals, and payers can leverage the information available from unsolicited online reviews to reduce avoidable rehospitalizations from SNFs is unknown.

Objectives: To assess the association between rehospitalization rates and online ratings of SNFs; to compare the association of rehospitalization with ratings from a review website vs Medicare Nursing Home Compare (NHC) ratings; and to identify specific topics consistently reported in reviews of SNFs with the highest vs lowest rehospitalization rates using natural language processing.