Using Twitter to Enhance the Social Support of Hispanic and Black Dementia Caregivers (Tweet-SS)

使用Twitter来增强西班牙裔和黑人痴呆症护理人员的社会支持（Tweet-SS） 西班牙裔和黑人的痴呆症患病率高于非西班牙裔白人。失智症照顾者 经常经历社会孤立和孤独，以及健康状况下降和生活质量下降。社会 支助干预措施已被证明有助于缓解这些问题。社交媒体的扩张 西班牙裔和黑人之间的使用，特别是Twitter -一个短消息服务-提供了很大的希望， 改善对西班牙裔和黑人痴呆症护理人员的社会支持。此外，大型 大量的推文和相关的元数据使应用创新的数据科学方法成为可能， 描述参与社会支持干预的特征，并评估其随时间的影响。然而，在这方面， 用于分析Twitter社区中的Twitter内容和社交网络结构的分析框架是 这是一个相对较新且发展迅速的工具，Twitter在提供干预方面的使用有限。通过 在联邦基金的资助下，我们的研究小组对西班牙裔痴呆症患者进行了大量研究， Twitter分析发现和可视化推文内容和社交网络结构，是唯一合格的 开发，实施和评估基于Twitter的西班牙裔和黑人社会支持干预 痴呆症护理人员根据社会交换理论，Tweet-SS的具体目标是：1）分析 专门针对黑人痴呆症的推文，并比较推文内容和社交网络结构 与我们先前在西班牙裔美国人中的发现相一致; 2）实施基于Twitter的干预措施，以增强社会支持 西班牙裔和黑人痴呆症护理人员; 3）评估基于Twitter的干预对 西班牙裔和黑人痴呆症护理者网络的推文内容和社交网络结构。我们将测试 两个假设：（a）在推文内容和宏观方面， 西班牙裔和黑人痴呆护理者网络的中、微观网络结构，以及（B） 在基于Twitter的干预、Twitter内容和 西班牙裔和黑人痴呆症护理者网络之间的社会网络结构。干预 包括每天发布社会支持（信息，工具，情感，评价）推文， 嵌入式基于网络的信息，如为黑人和西班牙裔痴呆症护理人员量身定制的视频， 通过双语项目Tweeter与护理人员网络进行互动，以及由 研究团队。我们将使用准实验非等效2组设计， 干预措施，以表征痴呆症照顾者与基于Twitter的社会支持的参与 干预，并检查其对推文内容和网络结构的影响。Tweet-SS响应于 国家老龄化研究所在人口、领域方面的老龄化研究战略方向 （行为和社会文化环境）和影响水平（个人，人际，社区）。

Using Twitter to Enhance the Social Support of Hispanic and Black Dementia Caregivers (Tweet-SS) The prevalence of dementia is higher in Hispanics and Blacks than non-Hispanic Whites. Dementia caregivers often experience social isolation and loneliness as well decreased health status and lower quality of life. Social support interventions have been demonstrated to help mitigate these issues. The expansion of social media use among Hispanics and Blacks, particularly Twitter – a short message service – offers great promise for improving social support for Hispanic and Black dementia caregivers. In addition, the availability of large volumes of Tweets and associated metadata make it possible to apply innovative data science methods to characterize engagement in a social support intervention and to assess its influence over time. However, analytic frameworks for analyzing Tweet content and social network structures in Twitter communities are relatively new and evolving rapidly, and there has been limited use of Twitter for intervention delivery. Through federal funding, our research team has conducted substantial research on Hispanic dementia caregiving using Twitter analytics to discover and visualize Tweet content and social network structures and is uniquely qualified to develop, implement, and evaluate a Twitter-based social support intervention for Hispanic and Black dementia caregivers. Informed by Social Exchange Theory, the specific aims of Tweet-SS are to: 1) analyze Tweets specific to dementia caregiving in Blacks and compare Tweet content and social network structures with our prior findings in Hispanics; 2) operationalize a Twitter-based intervention to enhance the social support for Hispanic and Black dementia caregivers; and 3) evaluate the impact of the Twitter-based intervention on Tweet content and social network structures of Hispanic and Black dementia caregiver networks. We will test two hypotheses: (a) There will be significant pre/post-intervention differences in Tweet content and macro-, meso-, and micro-level network structures for Hispanic and Black dementia caregiver networks, and (b) There will be no significant differences in level of engagement with the Twitter-based intervention, Tweet content, and social network structures between Hispanic and Black dementia caregiver networks. The intervention comprises daily posting of social support (informational, instrumental, emotional, appraisal) Tweets with embedded web-based information such as videos tailored to Black and Hispanic dementia caregivers, interactions with the caregiver networks by the bilingual project Tweeter, and a monthly Twitter chat hosted by the research team. We will use a quasi-experimental non-equivalent 2-group design with pre- and post- intervention measures to characterize dementia caregiver engagement with the Twitter-based social support intervention and examine its influence on Tweets content and network structures. Tweet-SS is responsive to the National Institute of Aging Strategic Directions for Research on Aging in terms of populations, domains (behavioral and sociocultural environment), and levels of influence (individual, interpersonal, community).