TY - JOUR AU - Wright, J. Pamela AU - Burts, Charlotte AU - Harmon, Carolyn AU - Corbett, F. Cynthia PY - 2025/6/12 TI - Availability and Use of Digital Technology Among Women With Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: Scoping Review JO - JMIR Infodemiology SP - e68469 VL - 5 KW - polycystic ovary syndrome KW - digital technology KW - mobile apps KW - digital health KW - self-management KW - mobile phone N2 - Background: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common endocrinopathy among women that requires self-management to improve mental and physical health outcomes and reduce risk of comorbidity. Digital technology has rapidly emerged as a valuable self-management tool for people with chronic health conditions. However, little is known about the digital technology available for and used by women with PCOS.?? Objective: The purpose of this scoping review was to identify what is known about digital technology currently available and used by women with PCOS for PCOS-specific knowledge, self-management, or social support. Methods: The databases PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, and Compendex were searched using Medical Subject Headings terms for PCOS, digital technology, health knowledge, self-management, and social support. Inclusion criteria were full-text, peer-reviewed publications of primary research from 2010 to 2025 in English about digital technology used for PCOS-specific knowledge, self-management, or social support by women aged 18 years and older with PCOS. Exclusion criteria were articles about pediatric populations and digital technology used for intervention recruitment or by health care providers to diagnose or treat patients. Results: In total, 34 full-text articles met the inclusion criteria. Given the scope of digital technology, eligible studies were grouped into 7 domains: mobile apps (n=14), internet-based programs (eg, Google; n=6), social media (n=6), SMS text message (n=2), machine learning (n=2), artificial intelligence (eg, ChatGPT [OpenAI]; n=3), and web-based intervention platforms (n=1). Findings highlighted participants? varied perceptions of technology usefulness based on reliability of health care information, application features, accuracy of PCOS or fertility prediction, social group engagement, user-friendly interfaces, cultural sensitivity, and accessibility. Conclusions: There is potential for digital technology to transform PCOS self-management, but further design and development are needed to optimize the technologies for women with PCOS. Future research should focus on including end users during the design phase of digital technology, refining predictive models, improving app inclusivity, conducting frequent reliability testing, and enhancing user engagement and support via additional features to promote more comprehensive self-management of PCOS.??? UR - https://infodemiology.jmir.org/2025/1/e68469 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/68469 ID - info:doi/10.2196/68469 ER - TY - JOUR AU - Almeida, Alexandra AU - Patton, Thomas AU - Conway, Mike AU - Gupta, Amarnath AU - Strathdee, A. Steffanie AU - Bórquez, Annick PY - 2024/9/13 TI - The Use of Natural Language Processing Methods in Reddit to Investigate Opioid Use: Scoping Review JO - JMIR Infodemiology SP - e51156 VL - 4 KW - opioid KW - Reddit KW - natural language processing KW - NLP KW - machine learning N2 - Background: The growing availability of big data spontaneously generated by social media platforms allows us to leverage natural language processing (NLP) methods as valuable tools to understand the opioid crisis. Objective: We aimed to understand how NLP has been applied to Reddit (Reddit Inc) data to study opioid use. Methods: We systematically searched for peer-reviewed studies and conference abstracts in PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO, ACL Anthology, IEEE Xplore, and Association for Computing Machinery data repositories up to July 19, 2022. Inclusion criteria were studies investigating opioid use, using NLP techniques to analyze the textual corpora, and using Reddit as the social media data source. We were specifically interested in mapping studies? overarching goals and findings, methodologies and software used, and main limitations. Results: In total, 30 studies were included, which were classified into 4 nonmutually exclusive overarching goal categories: methodological (n=6, 20% studies), infodemiology (n=22, 73% studies), infoveillance (n=7, 23% studies), and pharmacovigilance (n=3, 10% studies). NLP methods were used to identify content relevant to opioid use among vast quantities of textual data, to establish potential relationships between opioid use patterns or profiles and contextual factors or comorbidities, and to anticipate individuals? transitions between different opioid-related subreddits, likely revealing progression through opioid use stages. Most studies used an embedding technique (12/30, 40%), prediction or classification approach (12/30, 40%), topic modeling (9/30, 30%), and sentiment analysis (6/30, 20%). The most frequently used programming languages were Python (20/30, 67%) and R (2/30, 7%). Among the studies that reported limitations (20/30, 67%), the most cited was the uncertainty regarding whether redditors participating in these forums were representative of people who use opioids (8/20, 40%). The papers were very recent (28/30, 93%), from 2019 to 2022, with authors from a range of disciplines. Conclusions: This scoping review identified a wide variety of NLP techniques and applications used to support surveillance and social media interventions addressing the opioid crisis. Despite the clear potential of these methods to enable the identification of opioid-relevant content in Reddit and its analysis, there are limits to the degree of interpretive meaning that they can provide. Moreover, we identified the need for standardized ethical guidelines to govern the use of Reddit data to safeguard the anonymity and privacy of people using these forums. UR - https://infodemiology.jmir.org/2024/1/e51156 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/51156 UR - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ ID - info:doi/10.2196/51156 ER - TY - JOUR AU - Germani, Federico AU - Spitale, Giovanni AU - Machiri, Varaidzo Sandra AU - Ho, Loon Calvin Wai AU - Ballalai, Isabella AU - Biller-Andorno, Nikola AU - Reis, Alois Andreas PY - 2024/8/29 TI - Ethical Considerations in Infodemic Management: Systematic Scoping Review JO - JMIR Infodemiology SP - e56307 VL - 4 KW - World Health Organization KW - ethics KW - infodemic management KW - social listening KW - review KW - infodemic KW - health emergency KW - health emergencies KW - misinformation KW - disinformation KW - scoping review KW - ethical principles KW - community engagement KW - empowerment KW - data privacy KW - effectiveness N2 - Background: During health emergencies, effective infodemic management has become a paramount challenge. A new era marked by a rapidly changing information ecosystem, combined with the widespread dissemination of misinformation and disinformation, has magnified the complexity of the issue. For infodemic management measures to be effective, acceptable, and trustworthy, a robust framework of ethical considerations is needed. Objective: This systematic scoping review aims to identify and analyze ethical considerations and procedural principles relevant to infodemic management, ultimately enhancing the effectiveness of these practices and increasing trust in stakeholders performing infodemic management practices with the goal of safeguarding public health. Methods: The review involved a comprehensive examination of the literature related to ethical considerations in infodemic management from 2002 to 2022, drawing from publications in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. Policy documents and relevant material were included in the search strategy. Papers were screened against inclusion and exclusion criteria, and core thematic areas were systematically identified and categorized following PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines. We analyzed the literature to identify substantive ethical principles that were crucial for guiding actions in the realms of infodemic management and social listening, as well as related procedural ethical principles. In this review, we consider ethical principles that are extensively deliberated upon in the literature, such as equity, justice, or respect for autonomy. However, we acknowledge the existence and relevance of procedural practices, which we also consider as ethical principles or practices that, when implemented, enhance the efficacy of infodemic management while ensuring the respect of substantive ethical principles. Results: Drawing from 103 publications, the review yielded several key findings related to ethical principles, approaches, and guidelines for practice in the context of infodemic management. Community engagement, empowerment through education, and inclusivity emerged as procedural principles and practices that enhance the quality and effectiveness of communication and social listening efforts, fostering trust, a key emerging theme and crucial ethical principle. The review also emphasized the significance of transparency, privacy, and cybersecurity in data collection. Conclusions: This review underscores the pivotal role of ethics in bolstering the efficacy of infodemic management. From the analyzed body of literature, it becomes evident that ethical considerations serve as essential instruments for cultivating trust and credibility while also facilitating the medium-term and long-term viability of infodemic management approaches. UR - https://infodemiology.jmir.org/2024/1/e56307 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/56307 UR - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ ID - info:doi/10.2196/56307 ER - TY - JOUR AU - Shan, Yi AU - Ji, Meng AU - Xie, Wenxiu AU - Zhang, Xiaomin AU - Ng Chok, Harrison AU - Li, Rongying AU - Qian, Xiaobo AU - Lam, Kam-Yiu AU - Chow, Chi-Yin AU - Hao, Tianyong PY - 2022/11/15 TI - COVID-19?Related Health Inequalities Induced by the Use of Social Media: Systematic Review JO - JMIR Infodemiology SP - e38453 VL - 2 IS - 2 KW - systematic review KW - social media use KW - health inequalities KW - COVID-19 KW - mobile phone N2 - Background: COVID-19?related health inequalities were reported in some studies, showing the failure in public health and communication. Studies investigating the contexts and causes of these inequalities pointed to the contribution of communication inequality or poor health literacy and information access to engagement with health care services. However, no study exclusively dealt with health inequalities induced by the use of social media during COVID-19. Objective: This review aimed to identify and summarize COVID-19?related health inequalities induced by the use of social media and the associated contributing factors and to characterize the relationship between the use of social media and health disparities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A systematic review was conducted on this topic in light of the protocol of the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) 2020 statement. Keyword searches were performed to collect papers relevant to this topic in multiple databases: PubMed (which includes MEDLINE [Ovid] and other subdatabases), ProQuest (which includes APA PsycINFO, Biological Science Collection, and others), ACM Digital Library, and Web of Science, without any year restriction. Of the 670 retrieved publications, 10 were initially selected based on the predefined selection criteria. These 10 articles were then subjected to quality analysis before being analyzed in the final synthesis and discussion. Results: Of the 10 articles, 1 was further removed for not meeting the quality assessment criteria. Finally, 9 articles were found to be eligible and selected for this review. We derived the characteristics of these studies in terms of publication years, journals, study locations, locations of study participants, study design, sample size, participant characteristics, and potential risk of bias, and the main results of these studies in terms of the types of social media, social media use?induced health inequalities, associated factors, and proposed resolutions. On the basis of the thematic synthesis of these extracted data, we derived 4 analytic themes, namely health information inaccessibility?induced health inequalities and proposed resolutions, misinformation-induced health inequalities and proposed resolutions, disproportionate attention to COVID-19 information and proposed resolutions, and higher odds of social media?induced psychological distress and proposed resolutions. Conclusions: This paper was the first systematic review on this topic. Our findings highlighted the great value of studying the COVID-19?related health knowledge gap, the digital technology?induced unequal distribution of health information, and the resulting health inequalities, thereby providing empirical evidence for understanding the relationship between social media use and health inequalities in the context of COVID-19 and suggesting practical solutions to such disparities. Researchers, social media, health practitioners, and policy makers can draw on these findings to promote health equality while minimizing social media use?induced health inequalities. UR - https://infodemiology.jmir.org/2022/2/e38453 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/38453 UR - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36420437 ID - info:doi/10.2196/38453 ER - TY - JOUR AU - Yin, Dean-Chen Jason PY - 2022/8/10 TI - Media Data and Vaccine Hesitancy: Scoping Review JO - JMIR Infodemiology SP - e37300 VL - 2 IS - 2 KW - review KW - social media KW - traditional media KW - vaccine hesitancy KW - natural language processing KW - digital epidemiology N2 - Background: Media studies are important for vaccine hesitancy research, as they analyze how the media shapes risk perceptions and vaccine uptake. Despite the growth in studies in this field owing to advances in computing and language processing and an expanding social media landscape, no study has consolidated the methodological approaches used to study vaccine hesitancy. Synthesizing this information can better structure and set a precedent for this growing subfield of digital epidemiology. Objective: This review aimed to identify and illustrate the media platforms and methods used to study vaccine hesitancy and how they build or contribute to the study of the media?s influence on vaccine hesitancy and public health. Methods: This study followed the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) guidelines. A search was conducted on PubMed and Scopus for any studies that used media data (social media or traditional media), had an outcome related to vaccine sentiment (opinion, uptake, hesitancy, acceptance, or stance), were written in English, and were published after 2010. Studies were screened by only 1 reviewer and extracted for media platform, analysis method, the theoretical models used, and outcomes. Results: In total, 125 studies were included, of which 71 (56.8%) used traditional research methods and 54 (43.2%) used computational methods. Of the traditional methods, most used content analysis (43/71, 61%) and sentiment analysis (21/71, 30%) to analyze the texts. The most common platforms were newspapers, print media, and web-based news. The computational methods mostly used sentiment analysis (31/54, 57%), topic modeling (18/54, 33%), and network analysis (17/54, 31%). Fewer studies used projections (2/54, 4%) and feature extraction (1/54, 2%). The most common platforms were Twitter and Facebook. Theoretically, most studies were weak. The following five major categories of studies arose: antivaccination themes centered on the distrust of institutions, civil liberties, misinformation, conspiracy theories, and vaccine-specific concerns; provaccination themes centered on ensuring vaccine safety using scientific literature; framing being important and health professionals and personal stories having the largest impact on shaping vaccine opinion; the coverage of vaccination-related data mostly identifying negative vaccine content and revealing deeply fractured vaccine communities and echo chambers; and the public reacting to and focusing on certain signals?in particular cases, deaths, and scandals?which suggests a more volatile period for the spread of information. Conclusions: The heterogeneity in the use of media to study vaccines can be better consolidated through theoretical grounding. Areas of suggested research include understanding how trust in institutions is associated with vaccine uptake, how misinformation and information signaling influence vaccine uptake, and the evaluation of government communications on vaccine rollouts and vaccine-related events. The review ends with a statement that media data analyses, though groundbreaking in approach, should supplement?not supplant?current practices in public health research. UR - https://infodemiology.jmir.org/2022/2/e37300 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/37300 UR - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37113443 ID - info:doi/10.2196/37300 ER - TY - JOUR AU - Karafillakis, Emilie AU - Martin, Sam AU - Simas, Clarissa AU - Olsson, Kate AU - Takacs, Judit AU - Dada, Sara AU - Larson, Jane Heidi PY - 2021/2/8 TI - Methods for Social Media Monitoring Related to Vaccination: Systematic Scoping Review JO - JMIR Public Health Surveill SP - e17149 VL - 7 IS - 2 KW - vaccination KW - antivaccination movement KW - vaccination refusal KW - social media KW - internet KW - research design KW - review KW - media monitoring KW - social listening KW - infodemiology KW - infoveillance N2 - Background: Social media has changed the communication landscape, exposing individuals to an ever-growing amount of information while also allowing them to create and share content. Although vaccine skepticism is not new, social media has amplified public concerns and facilitated their spread globally. Multiple studies have been conducted to monitor vaccination discussions on social media. However, there is currently insufficient evidence on the best methods to perform social media monitoring. Objective: The aim of this study was to identify the methods most commonly used for monitoring vaccination-related topics on different social media platforms, along with their effectiveness and limitations. Methods: A systematic scoping review was conducted by applying a comprehensive search strategy to multiple databases in December 2018. The articles? titles, abstracts, and full texts were screened by two reviewers using inclusion and exclusion criteria. After data extraction, a descriptive analysis was performed to summarize the methods used to monitor and analyze social media, including data extraction tools; ethical considerations; search strategies; periods monitored; geolocalization of content; and sentiments, content, and reach analyses. Results: This review identified 86 articles on social media monitoring of vaccination, most of which were published after 2015. Although 35 out of the 86 studies used manual browser search tools to collect data from social media, this was time-consuming and only allowed for the analysis of small samples compared to social media application program interfaces or automated monitoring tools. Although simple search strategies were considered less precise, only 10 out of the 86 studies used comprehensive lists of keywords (eg, with hashtags or words related to specific events or concerns). Partly due to privacy settings, geolocalization of data was extremely difficult to obtain, limiting the possibility of performing country-specific analyses. Finally, 20 out of the 86 studies performed trend or content analyses, whereas most of the studies (70%, 60/86) analyzed sentiments toward vaccination. Automated sentiment analyses, performed using leverage, supervised machine learning, or automated software, were fast and provided strong and accurate results. Most studies focused on negative (n=33) and positive (n=31) sentiments toward vaccination, and may have failed to capture the nuances and complexity of emotions around vaccination. Finally, 49 out of the 86 studies determined the reach of social media posts by looking at numbers of followers and engagement (eg, retweets, shares, likes). Conclusions: Social media monitoring still constitutes a new means to research and understand public sentiments around vaccination. A wide range of methods are currently used by researchers. Future research should focus on evaluating these methods to offer more evidence and support the development of social media monitoring as a valuable research design. UR - http://publichealth.jmir.org/2021/2/e17149/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/17149 UR - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33555267 ID - info:doi/10.2196/17149 ER -