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

使用Twitter增强西班牙裔和黑人痴呆症照顾者的社会支持(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。痴呆症照顾者 经常经历社会孤立和孤独，健康状况下降，生活质量下降。社交 事实证明，支持干预措施有助于缓解这些问题。社交媒体的扩张 在拉美裔和黑人中使用，特别是Twitter-一种短消息服务-提供了巨大的前景 改善对西班牙裔和黑人痴呆症照顾者的社会支持。此外，大型数据库的可用性 大量的推文和关联元数据使将创新的数据科学方法应用于 描述社会支持干预的参与度，并评估其随时间的影响。然而， 用于分析Twitter社区中的推文内容和社交网络结构的分析框架有 推特相对较新，发展迅速，使用推特进行干预的情况有限。穿过 在联邦政府的资助下，我们的研究团队对西班牙裔痴呆症的护理进行了大量的研究，使用 Twitter分析功能可发现推文内容和社交网络结构并将其可视化，是唯一有资格 开发、实施和评估针对西班牙裔和黑人的基于Twitter的社会支持干预 痴呆症护理员。在社会交换理论的启发下，Tweet-SS的具体目的是：1)分析 针对黑人痴呆症护理的推文，并比较推文内容和社交网络结构 根据我们之前在拉美裔美国人中的发现；2)实施基于推特的干预措施，以增强社会支持 对于西班牙裔和黑人痴呆症照顾者；以及3)评估基于Twitter的干预对 西班牙裔和黑人痴呆症照顾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)干预前后在推特内容和宏观上会有显著差异， 西班牙裔和黑人痴呆症照顾者网络的中层、微观和微观网络结构，以及(B) 参与程度与基于Twitter的干预、推文内容和 西班牙裔和黑人痴呆症照顾者网络之间的社会网络结构。干预措施 包括每天发布社会支持(信息、工具、情感、评价)的推文 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做的视频， 通过双语项目Tweeter与照顾者网络进行互动，以及由 研究团队。我们将使用准实验非等价2组设计，包括前和后 以推特为基础的社会支持对痴呆症照顾者参与度的干预措施 干预并考察其对推文内容和网络结构的影响。Tweet-SS回应 国家老龄研究所人口、领域老龄化研究战略方向 (行为和社会文化环境)和影响程度(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).