Finding the Invisible Leader: When Opinion Leader Identification is Impossible.

Opinion leaders are increasingly recruited to diffuse information, attitudes, and behaviors to serve communication campaigns. However, this has historically required opinion leader identification before launching the campaign. identification is impossible in many contexts, such as when addressing unfamiliar topics or insular communities.

Communication Expressed on the COVID-19 Subreddit in the Midst of a Global Pandemic.

The manner in which scientific information related to the COVID-19 pandemic has been shared and discussed in similar venues has, to date, been largely neglected. Considering the role that such discourse plays in knowledge sharing and knowledge production, it is essential to understand such communication processes as they relate to global health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. The current study examines communication expressed by participants in the r/COVID19 subreddit, a community that facilitates scientific discussion of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The Evolution of Discourse in Online Communities Devoted to a Pandemic.

Online communities are increasingly important discursive spaces in which individuals obtain health information and engage in sensemaking, and they play an especially essential role during viral outbreaks in which social distancing requirements may preclude engagement with other communities and information sources. However, the manner in which those communities evolve in response to a rapidly developing public health crisis, as well as in reaction to one another, is not well-understood. This longitudinal study uses latent Dirichlet allocation to assess the co-evolution of three subreddits focused on COVID-19 during the earliest, most volatile stages of the outbreak.

"Sharing Hope and Healing": A Culturally Tailored Social Media Campaign to Promote Living Kidney Donation and Transplantation Among Native Americans.

In this article, the authors discuss a community-based participatory research (CBPR)-driven and culturally tailored social media campaign to promote living kidney donation and transplantation (LKDT) serving Native American communities, who are disproportionately burdened by kidney failure. The effort represents a collaboration among researchers, tribal leaders and community members, medical centers, and other stakeholders to facilitate health promotion related to LKDT among the broader Native American community. Campaign objectives were collaboratively established by the researchers and stakeholders, and the campaign approach and materials were likewise developed in consultation with the community.

Oral Healthcare Implications of Dedicated Online Communities: A Computational Content Analysis of the r/Dentistry Subreddit.

The current study explores communication expressed by participants in a subreddit surrounding oral health care, moderated by dentists and dental hygienists. The corpus was analyzed through Leximancer, a computer-assisted program used for computational content analyses of large data sets. Users' personal disclosures about ongoing dental concerns, advice about others' self-care, and the role of interpersonal communication with and among health care providers emerged as dominant themes.

Native Americans' Memorable Conversations About Living Kidney Donation and Transplant.

Living kidney donation and transplant (LKDT) offers a path of hope for patients on indefinite dialysis treatment. However, identification of a living donor can be challenging; initiating these conversations is difficult. Our study analyzes memorable conversations about LKDT that occurred in response to an LKDT campaign targeted to Native Americans.

The Healthfulness of Entrées and Students' Purchases in a University Campus Dining Environment.

The purpose of this study is to determine the availability of "more healthful" (MH) versus "less healthful" (LH) entrée items in the campus dining and if students' purchases are reflective of what is offered. This is an observational study in which purchases of the available entrée items in the campus dining at South Dakota State University in one academic year were collected and categorized as either MH or LH according to the American Heart Association guidelines. Chi-square tests were used to determine the differences between the proportion of purchased MH and LH versus those available.

Theoretical implications addressing rural college students' organ donation behaviors.

The current study used the theory of planned behavior to examine rural college students' attitudes, normative beliefs, and perceived behavioral control regarding intent to register as organ donors. This effort is done in light of a need to increase intervention efforts among college students, particularly those in rural areas where these undertakings may need to be tailored in grassroots approaches. The study made use of perceived behavioral control as a moderator and found partial support for the model.