Leveraging social networks for anytime-anyplace health information

Abstract

The health landscape is shifting to one in which common individuals are no longer merely consumers, but also producers, of health information. We demonstrate that social media platforms provide the means to seek and receive personalized, credible health advice from peers at any place and time, by tracking dental health advice sought and received in Twitter. We show that for genuine dental advice-seeking questions, answers are received 32 % of the time, with the first reply coming less than 6 min after the question is posed, in the median. We compare our results to studies focusing on generic questions and find stronger relationships between users that answer health questions. Additionally, we find that users with more social capital, in the form of more reciprocal follower/following relationships, are more likely to receive responses and receive them faster, and are thus better able to leverage their social networks in receiving advice.