An Investigation of Age-Differentiated Conversations About Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems on Reddit.

Introduction: This study analyzes age-differentiated Reddit conversations about ENDS.

Methods: This study combines 2 methods to (1) predict Reddit users' age into 2 categories (13-20 years [underage] and 21-54 years [of legal age]) using a machine learning algorithm and (2) qualitatively code ENDS-related Reddit posts within the 2 groups. The 25 posts with the highest karma score (number of upvotes minus number of downvotes) for each keyword search (i.

Can social media monitoring help identify the next EVALI? An examination of Reddit posts about vitamin E acetate and Dank Vapes.

Background: Scientists identified vitamin E acetate (VEA) and "Dank Vapes" (a fake brand of tetrahydrocannabinol [THC] vaping products) as contributors to the 2019-2020 outbreak of e-cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury (EVALI). On social media, people who post about vaping or THC discussed the causes of EVALI. We examined whether Reddit conversations may have served as early signals of the outbreak.

Correction: Predicting Age Groups of Reddit Users Based on Posting Behavior and Metadata: Classification Model Development and Validation.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.2196/25807.].

Predicting Age Groups of Reddit Users Based on Posting Behavior and Metadata: Classification Model Development and Validation.

Background: Social media are important for monitoring perceptions of public health issues and for educating target audiences about health; however, limited information about the demographics of social media users makes it challenging to identify conversations among target audiences and limits how well social media can be used for public health surveillance and education outreach efforts. Certain social media platforms provide demographic information on followers of a user account, if given, but they are not always disclosed, and researchers have developed machine learning algorithms to predict social media users' demographic characteristics, mainly for Twitter. To date, there has been limited research on predicting the demographic characteristics of Reddit users.