Harnessing the Social Web: Communities for Health and Wellness

A Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies Exploratory Workshop

February 3 – 5, 2013

This two and a half day workshop engaged multi-disciplinary experts, including researchers from a wide range of disciplines at UBC, graduate students, and distinguished international experts, to explore the dynamics of online communities for health and wellness promotion.

Overview

Social media are powerful tools to bring together community members who share common interests and goals. Online virtual communities formed through social media to support health and wellness can be beneficial to patients, caregivers, and health professionals; however, the power of such groups may be harmful if inaccurate or misleading health information is disseminated. Studying the dynamics of online communities for health and wellness promotion is both important and timely.

This two and a half day workshop brought together a group of 30 multi-disciplinary experts in closed discussions to explore the various dynamics at play that contribute to an online community’s successes, challenges, and opportunities. Through collaborative interdisciplinary exploration, the workshop addressed the management of information, as well as social support, decision-making, and action related to individual and community wellness goals. Five research themes and draft papers were discussed in detail: 1) individual information acquisition and application; 2) community genesis and sustainability; 3) technological design issues; 4) knowledge management, dissemination, and renewal; 5) and research designs. Discussions of future directions, including upcoming conferences, the development of new research proposals, and strategic industry partnerships also emerged from the workshop proceedings.

The public forum, “Social Media: The Good, the Bad and the Possible,” organized as part of the Peter Wall Workshop, brought together the general public, digital and health care experts, dignitaries, and researchers to learn more on how social media can be used to improve their own health and wellness and start a conversation around the important questions surrounding social media in health and medicine. The forum prompted interesting discussions both in-person and online with 1,004 tweets, 195 participants and 1,124,886 impressions following the #HCSMForum hashtag on Twitter. The event was also streamed live online and successfully engaged over 100 audience members via webcast across BC and beyond.

Together, the workshop and public forum shed light on the need to engage the general public, health professionals, researchers, and innovators to work together to unleash the power of social media and modern information technologies. The workshop further shed light on new and exciting ways to leverage social media in healthcare and to improve our health system’s ability and capacity to support each of us in wellness and sickness alike.

 

Highlights

Several papers generated from the Peter Wall Institute Exploratory Workshop on Social Media for Health have been published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR).  Find the special issue containing the three articles and the guest editorial here: Journal of Medical Internet Research Special Theme Issue 2014

Harnessing the Social Web for Health and Wellness: Issues for Research and Knowledge Translation
Kendall Ho, Peter Wall Workshop Participants
J Med Internet Res 2014 (Feb 11); 16(2):e34

Social Media: A Review and Tutorial of Applications in Medicine and Health Care
Francisco Jose Grajales III, Samuel Sheps, Kendall Ho, Helen Novak-Lauscher, Gunther Eysenbach
J Med Internet Res 2014 (Feb 11); 16(2):e13

Enabling Community Through Social Media
Anatoliy Gruzd, Caroline Haythornthwaite
J Med Internet Res 2013 (Oct 31); 15(10):e248

Sociotechnical Challenges and Progress in Using Social Media for Health
Sean A Munson, Hasan Cavusoglu, Larry Frisch, Sidney Fels
J Med Internet Res 2013 (Oct 22); 15(10):e226

 

Contact

For more information, please contact Lindsay Zibrik, or visit http://socialweb4health.pwias.ubc.ca/.