Learning about health and medicine from internet data

TY - GEN

T1 - Learning about health and medicine from internet data

AU - Yom-Tov, Elad

AU - Cox, Ingemar Johansson

AU - Lampos, Vasileios

N1 - Conference code: 8

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - Surveys show that around 70% of US Internet users consult the Internet when they require medical information. People seek this information using both traditional search engines and via social media. The information created using the search process offers an unprecedented opportunity for applications to monitor and improve the quality of life of people with a variety of medical conditions. In recent years, research in this area has addressed public-health questions such as the effect of media on development of anorexia, developed tools for measuring influenza rates and assessing drug safety, and examined the effects of health information on individual wellbeing. This tutorial will show how Internet data can facilitate medical research, providing an overview of the state-of-the-art in this area. During the tutorial we will discuss the information which can be gleaned from a variety of Internet data sources, including social media, search engines, and specialized medical websites. We will provide an overview of analysis methods used in recent literature, and show how results can be evaluated using publicly available health information and online experimentation. Finally, we will discuss ethical and privacy issues and possible technological solutions. This tutorial is intended for researchers of user generated content who are interested in applying their knowledge to improve health and medicine.

AB - Surveys show that around 70% of US Internet users consult the Internet when they require medical information. People seek this information using both traditional search engines and via social media. The information created using the search process offers an unprecedented opportunity for applications to monitor and improve the quality of life of people with a variety of medical conditions. In recent years, research in this area has addressed public-health questions such as the effect of media on development of anorexia, developed tools for measuring influenza rates and assessing drug safety, and examined the effects of health information on individual wellbeing. This tutorial will show how Internet data can facilitate medical research, providing an overview of the state-of-the-art in this area. During the tutorial we will discuss the information which can be gleaned from a variety of Internet data sources, including social media, search engines, and specialized medical websites. We will provide an overview of analysis methods used in recent literature, and show how results can be evaluated using publicly available health information and online experimentation. Finally, we will discuss ethical and privacy issues and possible technological solutions. This tutorial is intended for researchers of user generated content who are interested in applying their knowledge to improve health and medicine.

KW - Information retrieval

KW - Machine learning

KW - Medicine

KW - User generated data

U2 - 10.1145/2684822.2697042

DO - 10.1145/2684822.2697042

M3 - Article in proceedings

AN - SCOPUS:84928727849

SN - 978-1-4503-3317-7

SP - 417

EP - 418

BT - Proceedings of the 8th ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining

PB - Association for Computing Machinery

T2 - ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining

Y2 - 31 January 2015 through 6 February 2015

ER -