Director's Blog
Health Marketing Musings
from Jay M. Bernhardt, PhD, MPH
Wikipedia describes a social network as "a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, ideas, financial exchange, friends, kinship, dislike, conflict, trade, web links, sexual relations, disease transmission, or airline routes. The resulting structures are often very complex."
Social networks are not new. Humans have probably organized into social networks around the time we began walking upright, or sometime soon thereafter. Scholarship and analysis on social networks are not new either. A quick search for social-networks on Google Scholar reveals about 97,000 listings going back decades.
What is new and novel in the world of social networks, however, are "social network services," made possible by the internet and the countless applications and sites that connect people with each other electronically. Online social network services like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, are wildly popular and used daily by millions of people to share information within networks of friends and acquaintances. CDC believes social networks offer great potential to protect health when accurate and relevant information is shared between trusted peers to support positive and healthy decision making. For this reason, CDC has its own MySpace page and maintains a dialogue with health-oriented sites like Sermo, Daily Strength, and Patients Like Me.
A health-related social network service that I have personally used is CaringBridge, a nonprofit web service that connects family and friends during a critical illness, treatment, or recovery. It was founded in 1997 by Sona Mehring, who had a friend who had a life-threatening pregnancy. To keep family and friends informed, she created a website so updates could be more easily shared, without the disruption and delay of phone calls or emails. Realizing the enormous potential of using electronic communication so family and friends across the world could share information with loved ones, Sona and her colleagues created CaringBridge so that others could benefit from this social network.
My own experience with CaringBridge started with a close friend undergoing treatment for cancer. She created a CaringBridge site to describe her condition and treatment, share stories about her experience, and even upload photos. Each time she would post new information in her online journal, an email would automatically be sent to all her subscribers with a link back to the page. But the most inspiring part of the site is the guestbook where all her loved ones (far too many to count) regularly post words of support, encouragement, and love. Reading these heartfelt comments deeply affects me emotionally. I can only imaging how great they must make her feel.
According to statistics published on the site, 100,000 families have created free, personalized CaringBridge websites. There have been more than half a billion visits by families and friends and more than 15 million guestbook messages of hope and encouragement. What CaringBridge lacks in the bells and whistles of more sophisticated, higher-budget social network site, they make up for in ease of use, remaining advertisement-free, and advancing their charitable, non-profit mission to help connect people around the world during difficult times.
CDC recently formed a collaborative partnership with CaringBridge to extend the reach and accessibility of CDC's science-based health information to millions of CaringBridge users. By syndicating the "A-Z" listing of hundreds of different health topics from CDC.gov, CaringBridge users can now connect to CDC's credible online health messages when looking for health information on the site. CaringBridge founder Sona Mehring observed, "When families and friends are trying to support someone undergoing medical treatment, one of their most important needs, beyond emotional support, is access to trusted medical information about a specific disease or condition that their loved one may be coping with. Our new partnership with CDC does just that, providing 24–hour, online access to its extensive medical libraries. The CDC is consistently identified as a highly trusted source of medical information."
Social network services such as CaringBridge show the enormous power of bringing people together to share information and experiences that can make us all healthier, safer, and supported. Like my friend who found CaringBridge a critical aspect of her successful cancer treatment, I encourage you to share it with your friends and loved ones, and to explore ways social network services can further our goal of bringing health information and interventions to people where, when, and how they need it to inform healthy decisions.
Posted by Jay on Monday, July 7, 2008 at 3:00pm ET
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Jay,
It's terrific to see the kinds of partnerships and dialogues that CDC is forming with Health 2.0 entities from CaringBridge to Sermo. Health professionals in prevention, teaching and research all struggle with providing people with information in their time of need—getting them the right information, or the right care, at the right time. Anything we can do to make that easier helps. Increasingly, with regard to health behavior and behavior change, I'm noticing that those on the receiving end are saying, don't tell me what I need to know, tell me what I need to do. So to the extent we can be very pragmatic and tactical in the provision of health-related information, I think we will further extend the potency of social networks as a vehicle for improving health and health care.
Sarah M. Greene, MPH
Research Associate
Group Health Center for Health Studies
Seattle, WA
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Jay,
CaringBridge looks like a great resource. I did not know about it before. Thanks.
Theresa Ann Sipe, PhD, MPH, CNM, RN
Statistician, Community Guide
Centers For Disease Control and Prevention
Comment
Hello Jay,
Are there other blogs than yours within CDC?
I just returned for the UICC 08 World Cancer Congress where Samira Asma gave a presentation I recorded and posted on the conference blog I had created for this event.
It seems to me CDC and the CDC's Foundation could better communicate about their activities in tobacco control via one (or several) blog(s).
What is the CDC policy about blogs? Some organizations can be reluctant to use them.
Take care,
Philippe Boucher
Comment
Jay,
In addition to content publication, the CDC can also partner with social networks to polls members. As a social network, eHealthForum.com has recently added a poll and survey component to offer CDC the ability to gather evidence on opinions and awareness issues. Collaborations with social networks need not end there. Social networks also have extensive mailing lists which can broadcast e-newsletters at the touch of a button. The sky's the limit in terms of information dissemination!
Lee Weber
Community Director
http://ehealthforum.com - TOGETHER, we make good medicine.
Comment
Dear Philippe:
Thank you for your comments. I appreciate and share your enthusiasm about the potential of blogs to improve the health of people in the United States and around the world. Besides "Health Marketing Musings", there are four other blogs that are either directly controlled by CDC or sponsored by the agency:
- NIOSH Science blog: http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/blog/
- NCHHSTP Director's blog: http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/blog/
- NCIPC Director's blog: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/directorsview/
- Heightened National Response blog (on the NPIN site): https://www.cdcnpin.org/communities/HNR/blogs/hnr/
Blogs can be a valuable communication tool, and I am committed to using and expanding them not only at NCHM, but throughout CDC. But as a government agency CDC must have clear policies that users thoroughly understand about what can or cannot be posted in a blog. Although we are in the process of establishing a blog policy, we have some general guidelines that we follow. Only employees officially designated by CDC have the authority to speak on behalf of CDC in public blogs sponsored by CDC or in blogs sponsored by other organizations or individuals. When employees are designated as official spokespersons of the agency, they must identify themselves by name and title on any blog and follow standard review and clearance procedures as for any other public release of information.
Thanks again for your comments.
Posted by Jay on Friday, October 10, 2008 at 10:00am ETSubmit a comment
Jay,
I just found your very relevant commentary from last July and wanted to share another example of a "bridge" for caring.
The Recovery Coordination Program(s) of the DOD and VA, with DOL, launched a relevant "social network" site in November called the National Resource Directory, www.nationalresourcedirectory.org. It offers a data inventory of public, private and non-profit services and resources coast to coast for wounded, ill or injured service members and their families and families of the fallen. It is the beginning of a robust "social network" for those who provide care and support and those service members, veterans and their families who need just that. Its "suggest a resource" feature makes it very easy for anyone in the country to offer their assistance.
Thanks for calling attention to the benefit of web 2.0 capabilities in our joint effort to enhance care management and support for all those with a physical or mental health challenge or disability. Lynda
Lynda Davis, Ph.D.
Deputy Under Secretary for Defense
Military Community and Family Policy
Former DoD Lead for Reform of Care Management
Comment