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Use of Web 2.0 Social Media Platforms to Promote Community-Engaged Research Dialogs: A Preliminary Program Evaluation

BACKGROUND: Community-engaged research is defined by the Institute of Medicine as the process of working collaboratively with groups of people affiliated by geographic proximity, special interests, or similar situations with respect to issues affecting their well-being. Traditional face-to-face comm...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Valdez Soto, Miguel, Balls-Berry, Joyce E, Bishop, Shawn G, Aase, Lee A, Timimi, Farris K, Montori, Victor M, Patten, Christi A
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5035380/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27613231
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/resprot.4808
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author Valdez Soto, Miguel
Balls-Berry, Joyce E
Bishop, Shawn G
Aase, Lee A
Timimi, Farris K
Montori, Victor M
Patten, Christi A
author_facet Valdez Soto, Miguel
Balls-Berry, Joyce E
Bishop, Shawn G
Aase, Lee A
Timimi, Farris K
Montori, Victor M
Patten, Christi A
author_sort Valdez Soto, Miguel
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Community-engaged research is defined by the Institute of Medicine as the process of working collaboratively with groups of people affiliated by geographic proximity, special interests, or similar situations with respect to issues affecting their well-being. Traditional face-to-face community-engaged research is limited by geographic location, limited in resources, and/or uses one-way communications. Web 2.0 technologies including social media are novel communication channels for community-engaged research because these tools can reach a broader audience while promoting bidirectional dialogs. OBJECTIVE: This paper reports on a preliminary program evaluation of the use of social media platforms for promoting engagement of researchers and community representatives in dialogs about community-engaged research. METHODS: For this pilot program evaluation, the Clinical and Translational Science Office for Community Engagement in Research partnered with the Social Media Network at our institution to create a WordPress blog and Twitter account. Both social media platforms were facilitated by a social media manager. We used descriptive analytics for measuring engagement with WordPress and Twitter over an 18-month implementation period during 2014-2016. For the blog, we examined type of user (researcher, community representative, other) and used content analysis to generate the major themes from blog postings. For use of Twitter, we examined selected demographics and impressions among followers. RESULTS: There were 76 blog postings observed from researchers (48/76, 64%), community representatives (23/76, 32%) and funders (5/76, 8%). The predominant themes of the blog content were research awareness and dissemination of community-engaged research (35/76, 46%) and best practices (23/76, 30%). For Twitter, we obtained 411 followers at the end of the 18-month evaluation period, with an increase of 42% (from 280 to 411) over the final 6 months. Followers reported varied geographic location (321/411, 78%, resided in the United States); 99% (407/411) spoke English; and about half (218/411, 53%) were female. Followers produced 132,000 Twitter impressions. CONCLUSIONS: Researchers and community stakeholders use social medial platforms for dialogs related to community-engaged research. This preliminary work is novel because we used Web 2.0 social media platforms to engage these stakeholders whereas prior work used face-to-face formats. Future research is needed to explore additional social media platforms; expanded reach to other diverse stakeholders including patients, providers, and payers; and additional outcomes related to engagement.
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spelling pubmed-50353802016-10-11 Use of Web 2.0 Social Media Platforms to Promote Community-Engaged Research Dialogs: A Preliminary Program Evaluation Valdez Soto, Miguel Balls-Berry, Joyce E Bishop, Shawn G Aase, Lee A Timimi, Farris K Montori, Victor M Patten, Christi A JMIR Res Protoc Original Paper BACKGROUND: Community-engaged research is defined by the Institute of Medicine as the process of working collaboratively with groups of people affiliated by geographic proximity, special interests, or similar situations with respect to issues affecting their well-being. Traditional face-to-face community-engaged research is limited by geographic location, limited in resources, and/or uses one-way communications. Web 2.0 technologies including social media are novel communication channels for community-engaged research because these tools can reach a broader audience while promoting bidirectional dialogs. OBJECTIVE: This paper reports on a preliminary program evaluation of the use of social media platforms for promoting engagement of researchers and community representatives in dialogs about community-engaged research. METHODS: For this pilot program evaluation, the Clinical and Translational Science Office for Community Engagement in Research partnered with the Social Media Network at our institution to create a WordPress blog and Twitter account. Both social media platforms were facilitated by a social media manager. We used descriptive analytics for measuring engagement with WordPress and Twitter over an 18-month implementation period during 2014-2016. For the blog, we examined type of user (researcher, community representative, other) and used content analysis to generate the major themes from blog postings. For use of Twitter, we examined selected demographics and impressions among followers. RESULTS: There were 76 blog postings observed from researchers (48/76, 64%), community representatives (23/76, 32%) and funders (5/76, 8%). The predominant themes of the blog content were research awareness and dissemination of community-engaged research (35/76, 46%) and best practices (23/76, 30%). For Twitter, we obtained 411 followers at the end of the 18-month evaluation period, with an increase of 42% (from 280 to 411) over the final 6 months. Followers reported varied geographic location (321/411, 78%, resided in the United States); 99% (407/411) spoke English; and about half (218/411, 53%) were female. Followers produced 132,000 Twitter impressions. CONCLUSIONS: Researchers and community stakeholders use social medial platforms for dialogs related to community-engaged research. This preliminary work is novel because we used Web 2.0 social media platforms to engage these stakeholders whereas prior work used face-to-face formats. Future research is needed to explore additional social media platforms; expanded reach to other diverse stakeholders including patients, providers, and payers; and additional outcomes related to engagement. JMIR Publications 2016-09-09 /pmc/articles/PMC5035380/ /pubmed/27613231 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/resprot.4808 Text en ©Miguel Valdez Soto, Joyce E Balls-Berry, Shawn G Bishop, Lee A Aase, Farris K Timimi, Victor M Montori, Christi A Patten. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (http://www.researchprotocols.org), 09.09.2016. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Research Protocols, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.researchprotocols.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Valdez Soto, Miguel
Balls-Berry, Joyce E
Bishop, Shawn G
Aase, Lee A
Timimi, Farris K
Montori, Victor M
Patten, Christi A
Use of Web 2.0 Social Media Platforms to Promote Community-Engaged Research Dialogs: A Preliminary Program Evaluation
title Use of Web 2.0 Social Media Platforms to Promote Community-Engaged Research Dialogs: A Preliminary Program Evaluation
title_full Use of Web 2.0 Social Media Platforms to Promote Community-Engaged Research Dialogs: A Preliminary Program Evaluation
title_fullStr Use of Web 2.0 Social Media Platforms to Promote Community-Engaged Research Dialogs: A Preliminary Program Evaluation
title_full_unstemmed Use of Web 2.0 Social Media Platforms to Promote Community-Engaged Research Dialogs: A Preliminary Program Evaluation
title_short Use of Web 2.0 Social Media Platforms to Promote Community-Engaged Research Dialogs: A Preliminary Program Evaluation
title_sort use of web 2.0 social media platforms to promote community-engaged research dialogs: a preliminary program evaluation
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5035380/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27613231
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/resprot.4808
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