Capurro Daniel, Cole Kate, Echavarría Maria I, Joe Jonathan, Neogi Tina, Turner Anne M
J Med Internet Res. 2014 Mar 14;16(3):e79. doi: 10.2196/jmir.2679.
Social networking sites (SNSs) have the potential to increase the reach and efficiency of essential public health services, such as surveillance, research, and communication.
The objective of this study was to conduct a systematic literature review to identify the use of SNSs for public health research and practice and to identify existing knowledge gaps.
We performed a systematic literature review of articles related to public health and SNSs using PubMed, EMBASE, and CINAHL to search for peer-reviewed publications describing the use of SNSs for public health research and practice. We also conducted manual searches of relevant publications. Each publication was independently reviewed by 2 researchers for inclusion and extracted relevant study data.
A total of 73 articles met our inclusion criteria. Most articles (n=50) were published in the final 2 years covered by our search. In all, 58 articles were in the domain of public health research and 15 were in public health practice. Only 1 study was conducted in a low-income country. Most articles (63/73, 86%) described observational studies involving users or usages of SNSs; only 5 studies involved randomized controlled trials. A large proportion (43/73, 59%) of the identified studies included populations considered hard to reach, such as young individuals, adolescents, and individuals at risk of sexually transmitted diseases or alcohol and substance abuse. Few articles (2/73, 3%) described using the multidirectional communication potential of SNSs to engage study populations.
The number of publications about public health uses for SNSs has been steadily increasing in the past 5 years. With few exceptions, the literature largely consists of observational studies describing users and usages of SNSs regarding topics of public health interest. More studies that fully exploit the communication tools embedded in SNSs and study their potential to produce significant effects in the overall population's health are needed.
社交网站有潜力提高基本公共卫生服务的覆盖范围和效率，如监测、研究和沟通。
本研究的目的是进行系统的文献综述，以确定社交网站在公共卫生研究和实践中的应用，并找出现有的知识差距。
我们使用PubMed、EMBASE和CINAHL对与公共卫生和社交网站相关的文章进行了系统的文献综述，以搜索描述社交网站在公共卫生研究和实践中的应用的同行评审出版物。我们还对手头相关出版物进行了检索。每篇出版物由两名研究人员独立评审以确定是否纳入，并提取相关研究数据。
共有73篇文章符合我们的纳入标准。大多数文章（n = 50）发表于我们搜索涵盖的最后两年。总共有58篇文章属于公共卫生研究领域，15篇属于公共卫生实践领域。只有一项研究在低收入国家进行。大多数文章（63/73，86%）描述了涉及社交网站用户或使用情况的观察性研究；只有5项研究涉及随机对照试验。很大一部分（43/73，59%）已确定的研究纳入了被认为难以接触到的人群，如年轻人、青少年以及性传播疾病或酒精和药物滥用风险人群。很少有文章（2/73，3%）描述利用社交网站的多向沟通潜力来吸引研究人群。
在过去5年中，关于社交网站用于公共卫生的出版物数量一直在稳步增加。除了少数例外，文献主要由描述社交网站在公共卫生相关主题方面的用户和使用情况的观察性研究组成。需要更多充分利用社交网站中嵌入的沟通工具并研究其对总体人群健康产生重大影响的潜力的研究。
