Applying Social Network Analysis to Compare Dementia Caregiving Networks on Twitter in Hispanic and Black Communities
- Authors
- Yoon, Sunmoo; Alcantara, Carmela; Davis, Nicole; Broadwell, Peter; Lee, Haeyoung; Bristol, Amanda; Tipiani, Dante; Nho, Joo Young; Mittelman, Mary
- Issue Date
- Jan-2022
- Keywords
- caregivers; dementia; network analysis; social media; social support
- Citation
- Studies in health technology and informatics, v.289, pp 232 - 235
- Pages
- 4
- Journal Title
- Studies in health technology and informatics
- Volume
- 289
- Start Page
- 232
- End Page
- 235
- URI
- https://scholarworks.bwise.kr/cau/handle/2019.sw.cau/73237
- DOI
- 10.3233/SHTI210902
- ISSN
- 0926-9630
1879-8365
- Abstract
- We applied social network analysis (SNA) on Tweets to compare Hispanic and Black dementia caregiving networks. We randomly extracted Tweets mentioning dementia caregiving and related terms from corpora collected daily via the Twitter API from September 1 to December 31, 2019 (initial corpus: n = 2,742,539 Tweets, random sample n = 549,380 English Tweets, n= 185,684 Spanish Tweets). After removing bot-generated Tweets, we first applied a lexicon-based demographic inference algorithm to automatically identify Tweets likely authored by Black and Hispanic individuals using Python (n = 114,511 English, n = 1,185 Spanish). Then, using ORA, we computed network measures at macro, meso, and micro levels and applied the Louvain clustering algorithm to detect groups within each Hispanic and Black caregiving network. Both networks contained a similar proportion of dyads and triads (Hispanic 88.2%, Black 88.9%), while the Black caregiving network included a slightly larger proportion of isolates (Hispanic 0.8%, Black 4.0%). This study provides useful baseline information on the composition of existing large groups and small groups. In addition, this work provides useful guidance for future recruitment strategies and the design of social support interventions regarding emotional needs for Hispanic and Black dementia caregivers.
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Collections - Red Cross College of Nursing > Department of Nursing > 1. Journal Articles
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