An Exploration of Activities, Reasons, and Barriers of Using Social Media for Food Allergy Management
Keywords:
social media, food allergies, activities, barriersAbstract
Managing food allergies can be overwhelming for affected individuals. Social media (SoMe) may serve as a platform for individuals with food allergies to access and share useful information. This study investigates SoMe use among adults with food allergies. Fifty individuals with food allergies answered a series of open-ended questions related to their SoMe use behaviors. The answers were used to develop an online anonymous survey, which was completed by 319 individuals with food allergies. Results indicate that SoMe users mainly use SoMe to gather updated information about food allergies and hear somebody else’s experiences and advices about food allergies. Lack of privacy, concerns about reliability of the information, and lack of efficiency were barriers to the use of SoMe. Those who were younger, had an allergic reaction in restaurants in the past, and who were newly diagnosed with food allergy were more likely to engage in SoMe use for food allergy related purposes. SoMe administrators may seek strategies to remove barriers and share information from credible resources to benefit those in need of such information.
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AllergyEats. (2016). About Us. Retrieved from https://www.allergyeats.com/about-us/mission-statement/
Allergic Living (2016). Talking Allergies Forum. Retrieved from http://allergicliving.com/forum/
Alvarez-Perea, A., Cabrera-Freitag, P., Fuentes-Aparicio, V., Infante, S., Zapatero, L., & Zubeldia, J. M. (2018). Social media as a tool for the management of food allergy in children. Journal of Investigational Allergology & Clinical Immunology, 28(4), 233-240.
American Academy of Allergy Asthma, and Immunology. (2019). Food Allergy. Retrieved from https://www.aaaai.org/conditions-and-treatments/allergies/food-allergies
Antheunis, M. L., Tates, K., & Nieboer, T. E. (2013). Patients’ and health professionals’ use of social media in health care: Motives, barriers and expectations. Patient Education and Counseling, 92(3), 426-431.
Baptist, A. P., Thompson, M., Grossman, K. S., Mohammed, L., Sy, A., & Sanders, G. M. (2011). Social media, text messaging, and email-preferences of asthma patients between 12 and 40 years old. Journal of Asthma, 48(8), 824-830.
Branum, A. M., & Lukacs, S. L. Food Allergy among children: Trend in prevalence and hospitalizations. NCHS Data Brief, 10, 1-8.
Chou, W. Y. S., Hunt, Y. M., Beckjord, E. B., Moser, R. P., & Hesse, B. W. (2009). Social media use in the United States: Implications for health communication. Journal Of Medical Internet Research, 11(4), e48.
Cline, R. J., & Haynes, K. M. (2001). Consumer health information seeking on the Internet: the state of the art. Health Education Research, 16(6), 671-692.
Cotten, S. R., & Gupta, S. S. (2004). Characteristics of online and offline health information seekers and factors that discriminate between them. Social Science & Medicine, 59(9), 1795-1806.
Coulson, N. S., & Knibb, R. C. (2007). Coping with food allergy: exploring the role of the online support group. Cyber Psychology & Behavior, 10(1), 145-148.
Eysenbach, G., Powell, J., Englesakis, M., Rizo, C., & Stern, A. (2004). Health related virtual communities and electronic support groups: Systematic review of the effects of online peer to peer interactions. BMJ, 328, 1-6.
Fisher, J., & Clayton, M. (2012). Who gives a tweet: Assessing patients’ interest in the use of social media for health care. Worldviews on Evidence‐Based Nursing, 9(2), 100-108.
Food Allergy Research and Education (2016a). CDC's National Guidelines for Managing Food Allergies in Schools. Retrieved from http://www.foodallergy.org/cdc
Food Allergy Research and Education. (2016b). Food Allergies and Restaurants. Retrieved from http://www.foodallergy.org/advocacy/restaurants
Goese, D., & Dimov, V. (2014). Understanding The Role Of Online Resources For Childhood Food Allergies. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 133(2), AB213.
Gupta, R. S., Springston, M. R., Warrier, B. S., Rajesh, K., Pongracic, J., & Holl, J. L. (2011). The prevalence, severity, and distribution of childhood food allergy in the United States. Pediatrics, 128(1):e9-17.
Gupta, R., Holdford, D., Bilaver, L., Dyer, A., Holl, J. L., & Meltzer, D. (2013). The economic impact of childhood food allergy in the United States. JAMA Pediatrics, 167(11), 1026-1031.
Gursoy, D., Maier, T. A., & Chi, C. G. (2008). Generational differences: An examination of work values and generational gaps in the hospitality workforce. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 27(3), 448-458.
Lieberman, J. A., Weiss, C., Furlong, T. J., Sicherer, M., & Sicherer, S. H. (2010). Bullying among pediatric patients with food allergy. Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, 105(4), 282-286.
Mayo Clinic. (2009). Food allergy symptoms. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/food-allergy/DS00082/DSECTION=symptoms
Merriam-Webster (2017). Social media. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social%20media
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National
Institutes of Health. (2006). Report of the NIH Expert Panel on Food Allergy Research. Retrieved from www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/foodallergy/research/pages/reportfoodallergy.aspx
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (2008). Food Allergy Quick Facts. Retrieved from http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/topics/foodAllergy/default.htm
Petrovski, G., Zivkovic, M., & Stratrova, S. S. (2015). Social media and diabetes: can Facebook and Skype improve glucose control in patients with type 1 diabetes on pump therapy? One-year experience. Diabetes Care, 38(4), e51-e52.
Smith G (2016). Adult Onset Food Allergies. Retrieved from: http://www.foodallergy.org/file/Webinar-Slides-Adult-Onset-Food-Allergy.pdf
Springston, E. E., Smith, B., Shulruff, J., Pongracic, J., Holl, J., & Gupta, R. S. (2010). Variations in quality of life among caregivers of food allergic children. Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, 105(4), 287-294.
Statista. (2018a). Number of Social Network Users Worldwide from 2010 to 2021 (in billions). Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/
Statista. (2018b). Most Popular Social Networks Worldwide as of October 2018, Ranked by Number of Active Users (in millions). Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/
Sterne, J. (2010). Social media metrics: How to measure and optimize your marketing investment. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.
Strong, B. D., Ross, J., Fishman, J., Noone, S. A., Atal, Z., Ehritz, C., ... & Wang, J. (2016). Patient Use Online Resources and Social Media for Food Allergy Information. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 137(2), AB84.
Struik, L. L., & Baskerville, N. B. (2014). The role of Facebook in Crush the Crave, a mobile-and social media-based smoking cessation intervention: Qualitative framework analysis of posts. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 16(7), e170.
United States Healthful Food Council (2016). About The United States Healthful Food Council. Retrieved from: http://ushfc.org/about/#fancy-form-delay
Van Os-Medendorp, H., van Leent-de Wit, I., de Bruin-Weller, M., & Knulst, A. (2015). Usage and users of online self-management programs for adult patients with atopic dermatitis and food allergy: an explorative study. JMIR Research Protocols, 4(2), e57.
Villanti, A. C., Johnson, A. L., Ilakkuvan, V., Jacobs, M. A., Graham, A. L., & Rath, J. M. (2017). Social media use and access to digital technology in US young adults in 2016. Journal Of Medical Internet Research, 19(6), e196.
Voordouw, J., Fox, M., Cornelisse-Vermaat, J., Antonides, G., Mugford, M., & Frewer, L. (2010). Household costs associated with food allergy: An exploratory study. British Food Journal, 112(11), 1205-1215.
Walkner, M., Warren, C., & Gupta, R. S. (2015). Quality of life in food allergy patients and their families. Pediatric Clinics, 62(6), 1453-1461.
Wright, K. B., Bell, S. B., Wright, K. B., & Bell, S. B. (2003). Health-related support groups on the Internet: Linking empirical findings to social support and computer-mediated communication theory. Journal of Health Psychology, 8(1), 39-54.
Zhang, Y. (2010). Contextualizing consumer health information searching: an analysis of questions in a social Q&A community. In Proceedings of the 1st ACM International Health Informatics Symposium (pp. 210-219).
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