As social media becomes more ingrained in everyday life it has also become increasingly a part of the digital health space. Even governments have taken notice of the potential of the platforms, creating partnerships and initiatives centered around social media aiming to keep its populations healthy. For example, in January the Canadian government announced an initiative to use artificial intelligence to help track social media posts that could indicate someone is at risk of suicide.
The UK’s NHS took a different angle to social media and tapped into the dating app Tinder a few years ago with an initiative to promote organ donations. But social media has also created some issues in the healthcare space as well. Take Grindr, a dating app that caters to gay and bisexual men. In April, news broke that the app was sharing its users’ HIV status to app optimization companies, Apptimize and Localytics. The company denies selling the data to companies.
But when it comes to the largest social media platform out there, at the moment, none can compete with Facebook, boasting 2.2 billion monthly users.
Facebook has made concerted efforts to get involved with health initiates over the last few years, zeroing in on everything from blood drive donations to suicide prevention. The platform has also been used in a slew of studies.
Read on for a catalogue of research and initiatives Facebook has made in the digital health space over the last few years.
Blood drive news. In 2017 Facebook created a new feature to encourage blood donation. Then in May it announced that it was expanding the feature in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The way it works is Facebok users in these three countries will be able to identify themselves as blood donors and then receive a notification when an individual hospital or blood bank is in need. Users can also choose to supply their blood type, in which case they can be targeted by notifications when a particular type is needed.
“According the the World Health Organizations there are more than 70 countries in the world where people don’t have safe blood when needed and people often have to find their own blood donors,” Facebook’s Head of Health Hema Budaraju told MobiHealthNews in May. “We noted that in many of these countries there’s a lot of action on Facebook. There are people who comment, sometimes a thousand in a day, saying ‘We’re looking for blood donors, can you help?’”
Addressing the opioid epidemic. In July Facebook announced that only pre-certified addiction treatment centers will be able to advertise on its site. This news comes after a wave of criticism about social media’s role in the epidemic.
“People facing addiction or who have loved ones in need should be able to find support without encountering scams or predatory behavior,” Facebook wrote when announcing the change.
Now any center that plans to advertise on Facebook in the US will have to show a certification from LegitScripts. This certification will ensure that the facilities have a background check, and meet state legal and regulatory licensing requirements and privacy practices.
Suicide prevention. Facebook is using artificial intelligence to identify suicide threats or high-risk posts, the company announced in 2017.
"Over the last month, we’ve worked with first responders on over 100 wellness checks based on reports we received via our proactive detection efforts," VP of Product Management Guy Rosen wrote in a blog post at the time of the announcement. "This is in addition to reports we received from people in the Facebook community. We also use pattern recognition to help accelerate the most concerning reports. We’ve found these accelerated reports— that we have signaled require immediate attention —are escalated to local authorities twice as quickly as other reports. We are committed to continuing to invest in pattern recognition technology to better serve our community."
The social network has been working on the issue for more than 10 years, but started employing AI in March of 2017. Facebook uses pattern recognition to find posts where either the content or the comments match a pattern for suicide risk (for instance, a high volume of comments like “Are you ok?” and “Can I help?”). It also reviews the comments and likes on Facebook Live posts to flag a particular part of the video for human review.
More data, better care? News broke in April that Facebook was looking to team up with major US hospitals, hoping to obtain data from the providers about their patients and care. According to CNBC, the plan was to match the user’s data with their profile in an effort to study ways to offer better and more customized care. That plan was put on hold after the Cambridge Analytica scandal came to light. The company told CNBC that the data would exclusively be used for research in the medical community.
Looking for a friend. In 2017 AI chatbot Woebot integrated with Facebook Messenger. The system, which is completely automatic, provides conversation for folks looking for supportive conversation to deal with anxiety or depression.
WhatsApp finds support among foreign doctors. In Argentina, Facebook owned WhatsApp is gaining steam. Argentinian ambulance doctors are using the app to fast track their patients’ care. An October 2017 study published in the Argentine Congress of Cardiology suggests that using the free messaging app to send diagnostic electocardiograms (ECGs) directly to a hospital’s catheterization lab allowed heart attack patients to bypass the emergency department and reduce mortality.
Smoking Cessation groups. In May a study published by Addiction found that members of smoking cessation Facebook groups were more than 2.5 times more successful in quitting smoking than the controls over a three-month timeframe. However, after a year, those in the intervention group actually had lower rates of cessation than the control group.
Peer caregiver support. Researchers at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis developed a Facebook “friendsourcing” group that is designed to help people caring for someone with Alzheimer’s disease connect. The project is funded by a $29,000 grant that comes from the Regenstrief Institute at IUPUI. In a small study published by the Journal of Technology in Human Services, the “friendsourcing” Facebook app helped decrease burden and perceived stress of unpaid Alzheimer's caregivers.
Facebook-connected patients are happy patients. A study published by Surgery in December reported that liver transplant patients as well as their families were more engaged and satisfied when part of a Facebook group.
Researchers created a Facebook group for liver transplant patients to use as a virtual community forum. Family members, caregivers, and healthcare providers were all able to participate in the group. In total, 350 users joined the group over the nine-month study. Of that, 50 percent were liver transplant patients, 36 percent were caregivers and friends, and 14 percent were healthcare providers.
Applying AI to MRIs. The Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research group (FAIR) has teamed up with the NYU School of Medicine on a new project that could make magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans 10 times faster.
FAIR, founded in 2013, is a Facebook-affliated research group that partners with universities to study machine learning and artificial intelligence, often in areas with no direct connection to social networking. According to a Facebook blog post announcing the partnership, the research group was actively looking for a high-impact project, while the NYU School of Radiology's Center for Advanced Imaging Innovation and Research (CAI2R) was looking for additional AI expertise to actualize a theory the group has been investigating since 2016.
“[MRI scanners] are relatively slow, taking anywhere from 15 minutes to over an hour, compared with less than a second or up to a minute, respectively, for X-ray and CT scans. These long scan times can make MRI machines challenging for young children, as well as for people who are claustrophobic or for whom lying down is painful. Additionally, there are MRI shortages in many rural areas and in other countries with limited access, resulting in long scheduling backlogs. By boosting the speed of MRI scanners, we can make these devices accessible to a greater number of patients.”
