Related papers: AskDoc -- Identifying Hidden Healthcare Disparitie…
Studies suggest that one in three US adults use the Internet to diagnose or learn about a health concern. However, such access to health information online could exacerbate the disparities in health information availability and use. Health…
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one in four people will be affected by mental disorders at some point in their lives. However, in many parts of the world, patients do not actively seek professional diagnosis because of…
Online forums provide rich environments where users may post questions and comments about different topics. Understanding how people behave in online forums may shed light on the fundamental mechanisms by which collective thinking emerges…
Social media was one of the most popular forms of communication among young people with digital access during the pandemic. Consequently, crucial debates and discussions about the pandemic crisis have also developed on social media…
Community Question-Answering platforms, such as Stack Overflow (SO), are valuable knowledge exchange and problem-solving resources. These platforms incorporate mechanisms to assess the quality of answers and participants' expertise, ideally…
COVID-19 pandemic has adversely and disproportionately impacted people suffering from mental health issues and substance use problems. This has been exacerbated by social isolation during the pandemic and the social stigma associated with…
In the last decade drug overdose deaths reached staggering proportions in the US. Besides the raw yearly deaths count that is worrisome per se, an alarming picture comes from the steep acceleration of such rate that increased by 21% from…
Representation shapes public attitudes and behaviors. With the recent advances and rapid adoption of LLMs, the way these systems are introduced will negotiate societal expectations for their role in high-stakes domains like health. Yet it…
Using language models, we analyze a sample of 67 million tweets and 30 million Reddit comments referencing a set of 215 political entities from 2010-2023 from partisan users, journalists, and politicians. Our analysis indicates outgroup…
Demographics, in particular, gender, age, and race, are a key predictor of human behavior. Despite the significant effect that demographics plays, most scientific studies using online social media do not consider this factor, mainly due to…
The Wikipedia editors' community has been actively pursuing the intent of achieving gender equality. To that end, it is important to explore the historical evolution of underlying gender disparities in Wikipedia articles. This paper…
Despite Facebook's central role in American civic life, a clear, evidence-based understanding of users' long-term information environments has remained elusive, hindering assessments of the platform's societal impact. This study addresses…
Making online social communities 'better' is a challenging undertaking, as online communities are extraordinarily varied in their size, topical focus, and governance. As such, what is valued by one community may not be valued by another.…
Online Mental Health Communities (OMHCs), such as Reddit, have witnessed a surge in popularity as go-to platforms for seeking information and support in managing mental health needs. Platforms like Reddit offer immediate interactions with…
A growing number of people engage in online health forums, making it important to understand the quality of the advice they receive. In this paper, we explore the role of expertise in responses provided to help-seeking posts regarding…
Older adults' need for quality health information has never been more critical as during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, they are susceptible to the wide-spread misinformation disseminated through search engines and social media. To build a…
In pseudonymous online fora like Reddit, the benefits of self-disclosure are often apparent to users (e.g., I can vent about my in-laws to understanding strangers), but the privacy risks are more abstract (e.g., will my partner be able to…
Screening questionnaires are used in medicine as a diagnostic aid. Creating them is a long and expensive process, which could potentially be improved through analysis of social media posts related to symptoms and behaviors prior to…
Social media platforms facilitate the dissemination of science and access to it. However, gender inequalities in the participation and visibility of communicators persist. This study examined the differences in reach and audience response…
Recent studies reveal widespread concern and increasing lack of understanding about how personal data is collected, shared, and used online without consent. This issue is compounded by limited options available for digital citizens to…