Online Conversation Monitoring to Understand the Opioid Epidemic: Epidemiological Surveillance Study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Between 2016 and 2017, the national mortality rate involving opioids continued its escalation; opioid deaths rose from 42,249 to 47,600, bringing the public health crisis to a new height. Considering that 69% of adults in the United States use online social media sites, a resource that builds a more complete understanding of prescription drug misuse and abuse could supplement traditional surveillance instruments. The Food and Drug Administration has identified 5 key risks and consequences of opioid drugs—misuse, abuse, addiction, overdose, and death. Identifying posts that discuss these key risks could lead to novel information that is not typically captured by traditional surveillance systems. OBJECTIVE The goal of this study was to describe the trends of online posts (frequency over time) involving abuse, misuse, addiction, overdose, and death in the United States and to describe the types of websites that host these discussions. Internet posts that mentioned fentanyl, hydrocodone, oxycodone, or oxymorphone were examined. METHODS Posts that did not refer to personal experiences were removed, after which 3.1 million posts remained. A stratified sample of 61,000 was selected. Unstructured data were classified into 5 key risks by manually coding for key outcomes of misuse, abuse, addiction, overdose, and death. Sampling probabilities of the coded posts were used to estimate the total post volume for each key risk. RESULTS Addiction and misuse were the two most commonly discussed key risks for hydrocodone, oxycodone, and oxymorphone. For fentanyl, overdose and death were the most discussed key risks. Fentanyl had the highest estimated number of misuse-, overdose-, and death-related mentions (41,808, 42,659, and 94,169, respectively). Oxycodone had the highest estimated number of abuse- and addiction-related mentions (3548 and 12,679, respectively). The estimated volume of online posts for fentanyl increased by more than 10-fold in late 2017 and 2018. The odds of discussing fentanyl overdose (odds ratios [OR] 4.32, 95% CI 2.43-7.66) and death (OR 5.05, 95% CI 3.10-8.21) were higher for social media, while the odds of discussing fentanyl abuse (OR 0.10, 95% CI 0.04-0.22) and addiction (OR 0.24, 95% CI 0.15-0.38) were higher for blogs and forums. CONCLUSIONS Of the 5 FDA-defined key risks, fentanyl overdose and death has dominated discussion in recent years, while discussion of oxycodone, hydrocodone, and oxymorphone has decreased. As drug-related deaths continue to increase, an understanding of the motivations, circumstances, and consequences of drug abuse would assist in developing policy responses. Furthermore, content was notably different based on media origin, and studies that exclusively use either social media sites (such as Twitter) or blogs and forums could miss important content. This study sets out sustainable, ongoing methodology for surveilling internet postings regarding these drugs.

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Online Conversation Monitoring to Understand the Opioid Epidemic: Epidemiological Surveillance Study

JMIR Public Health and Surveillance ◽

10.2196/17073 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. e17073

Author(s):

Joshua C Black ◽

Zachary R Margolin ◽

Richard A Olson ◽

Richard C Dart

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Social Media ◽

The United States ◽

Drug Misuse ◽

Epidemiological Surveillance ◽

Surveillance Systems ◽

Prescription Drug Misuse ◽

Health Crisis ◽

Online Social Media ◽

Traditional Surveillance

Background Between 2016 and 2017, the national mortality rate involving opioids continued its escalation; opioid deaths rose from 42,249 to 47,600, bringing the public health crisis to a new height. Considering that 69% of adults in the United States use online social media sites, a resource that builds a more complete understanding of prescription drug misuse and abuse could supplement traditional surveillance instruments. The Food and Drug Administration has identified 5 key risks and consequences of opioid drugs—misuse, abuse, addiction, overdose, and death. Identifying posts that discuss these key risks could lead to novel information that is not typically captured by traditional surveillance systems. Objective The goal of this study was to describe the trends of online posts (frequency over time) involving abuse, misuse, addiction, overdose, and death in the United States and to describe the types of websites that host these discussions. Internet posts that mentioned fentanyl, hydrocodone, oxycodone, or oxymorphone were examined. Methods Posts that did not refer to personal experiences were removed, after which 3.1 million posts remained. A stratified sample of 61,000 was selected. Unstructured data were classified into 5 key risks by manually coding for key outcomes of misuse, abuse, addiction, overdose, and death. Sampling probabilities of the coded posts were used to estimate the total post volume for each key risk. Results Addiction and misuse were the two most commonly discussed key risks for hydrocodone, oxycodone, and oxymorphone. For fentanyl, overdose and death were the most discussed key risks. Fentanyl had the highest estimated number of misuse-, overdose-, and death-related mentions (41,808, 42,659, and 94,169, respectively). Oxycodone had the highest estimated number of abuse- and addiction-related mentions (3548 and 12,679, respectively). The estimated volume of online posts for fentanyl increased by more than 10-fold in late 2017 and 2018. The odds of discussing fentanyl overdose (odds ratios [OR] 4.32, 95% CI 2.43-7.66) and death (OR 5.05, 95% CI 3.10-8.21) were higher for social media, while the odds of discussing fentanyl abuse (OR 0.10, 95% CI 0.04-0.22) and addiction (OR 0.24, 95% CI 0.15-0.38) were higher for blogs and forums. Conclusions Of the 5 FDA-defined key risks, fentanyl overdose and death has dominated discussion in recent years, while discussion of oxycodone, hydrocodone, and oxymorphone has decreased. As drug-related deaths continue to increase, an understanding of the motivations, circumstances, and consequences of drug abuse would assist in developing policy responses. Furthermore, content was notably different based on media origin, and studies that exclusively use either social media sites (such as Twitter) or blogs and forums could miss important content. This study sets out sustainable, ongoing methodology for surveilling internet postings regarding these drugs.

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Rumors on the Net: A Brackish Suspension of Speech and Hate

Law Culture and the Humanities ◽

10.1177/1743872119880121 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 174387211988012 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Anne Wagner ◽

Sarah Marusek

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Social Media ◽

Hate Speech ◽

Public Memory ◽

The United States ◽

Online Social Media ◽

Cyber Culture ◽

Social Media Platforms ◽

The Impact ◽

Mob Mentality

The legitimacy of public memory and socially normative standards of civility is questioned through rumors that abound on online social media platforms. On the Net, the proclivity of rumors is particularly prone to acts of bullying and frameworks of hate speech. Legislative attempts to limit rumors operate differently in France and throughout Europe from the United States. This article examines the impact of online rumors, the mob mentality, and the politicization of bullying critics within a cyber culture that operates within the limitations of law.

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Predictors of Prescription Drug Misuse among High School Students in the United States

Deviant Behavior ◽

10.1080/01639625.2020.1785237 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-11

Author(s):

Jason Nicholson ◽

Catherine D. Marcum ◽

George E. Higgins

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

High School ◽

High School Students ◽

Prescription Drug ◽

The United States ◽

Drug Misuse ◽

School Students ◽

Prescription Drug Misuse

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Examining the association between bullying victimization and prescription drug misuse among adolescents in the United States

Journal of Affective Disorders ◽

10.1016/j.jad.2019.08.063 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 259 ◽

pp. 317-324 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Philip Baiden ◽

Savarra K. Tadeo

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Prescription Drug ◽

The United States ◽

Drug Misuse ◽

Bullying Victimization ◽

Prescription Drug Misuse

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Illicit and Prescription Drug Misuse among Sexual Minority Women in the United States: A Protocol for a Scoping Review

Social Science Protocols ◽

10.7565/ssp.v3.5050 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 3 ◽

pp. 1-12

Author(s):

Kelly Gagnon ◽

Jessica Frankeberger ◽

Stephanie Corey ◽

Barbara L. Folb ◽

Christina Mair ◽

...

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Substance Use ◽

Drug Use ◽

Prescription Drug ◽

Sexual Minority ◽

The United States ◽

Minority Women ◽

Drug Misuse ◽

Sexual Minority Women ◽

Prescription Drug Misuse

Background: The United States Institute of Medicine (IOM) published reports in 1999 and 2011 identifying drug use as a priority area for sexual minority health research, specifically focused on mechanisms contributing to drug use disparities and the development of tailored interventions. Limited research has prioritized sexual minority women (SMW) with the majority of substance use research among sexual minorities focused on adolescents and men who have sex with men. This scoping review will characterize the research literature related to illicit drug use and prescription drug misuse among SMW and sub-groups within the SMW population. Through this, we will identify: (1) specific substances used; (2) patterns of substance use; (3) risk and protective factors; (4) prevention interventions; and (5) drug treatment programs specific to SMW. Methods/Design: This review will include studies with empirical data of illicit or prescription drug misuse among sexual minority women. Peer-reviewed quantitative research conducted in the United States and published in English from 2011-Present will be included. We will search Medline, PsycINFO, and Web of Science databases for relevant articles. Two independent reviewers will screen abstracts and relevant full-text studies for eligibility. Data will be extracted from eligible articles and results will be presented in narrative and tabular form as appropriate. Discussion: This work will identify gaps of knowledge in the research pertaining to illicit or prescription drug misuse among sexual minority women since the 2011 US IOM report. As a result of this work, we will propose directions for future research to address identified gaps.

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No Place to Hide: Inadvertent Location Privacy Leaks on Twitter

Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies ◽

10.2478/popets-2019-0064 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2019 (4) ◽

pp. 172-189

Author(s):

Jonathan Rusert ◽

Osama Khalid ◽

Dat Hong ◽

Zubair Shafiq ◽

Padmini Srinivasan

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Social Media ◽

Location Privacy ◽

Naive Bayes ◽

The United States ◽

Sensitive Information ◽

Online Social Media ◽

Points Of Interest ◽

Bayes Algorithm ◽

Share Information

Abstract There is a natural tension between the desire to share information and keep sensitive information private on online social media. Privacy seeking social media users may seek to keep their location private by avoiding the mentions of location revealing words such as points of interest (POIs), believing this to be enough. In this paper, we show that it is possible to uncover the location of a social media user’s post even when it is not geotagged and does not contain any POI information. Our proposed approach Jasoos achieves this by exploiting the shared vocabulary between users who reveal their location and those who do not. To this end, Jasoos uses a variant of the Naive Bayes algorithm to identify location revealing words or hashtags based on both temporal and atemporal perspectives. Our evaluation using tweets collected from four different states in the United States shows that Jasoos can accurately infer the locations of close to half a million tweets corresponding to more than 20,000 distinct users (i.e., more than 50% of the test users) from the four states. Our work demonstrates that location privacy leaks do occur despite due precautions by a privacy conscious user. We design and evaluate countermeasures based Jasoos to mitigate location privacy leaks.

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Right-wing populism, social media and echo chambers in Western democracies

New Media & Society ◽

10.1177/1461444819893983 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 22 (4) ◽

pp. 683-699 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Shelley Boulianne ◽

Karolina Koc-Michalska ◽

Bruce Bimber

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Social Media ◽

United Kingdom ◽

Digital Media ◽

The United States ◽

Right Wing ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Online Social Media ◽

Echo Chamber ◽

Right Wing Populism

Many observers are concerned that echo chamber effects in digital media are contributing to the polarization of publics and, in some places, to the rise of right-wing populism. This study employs survey data collected in France, the United Kingdom and the United States (1500 respondents in each country) from April to May 2017. Overall, we do not find evidence that online/social media explain support for right-wing populist candidates and parties. Instead, in the United States, use of online media decreases support for right-wing populism. Looking specifically at echo chamber measures, we find offline discussion with those who are similar in race, ethnicity and class positively correlates with support for populist candidates and parties in the United Kingdom and France. The findings challenge claims about the role of social media and the rise of populism.

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Preventing Prescription Drug Misuse: A Regulatory Perspective in the United States, Europe, and India

International Journal of Drug Regulatory Affairs ◽

10.22270/ijdra.v9i4.502 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (4) ◽

pp. 46-52

Author(s):

Dhruvi B Thakker ◽

Kalpana G Patel

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Regulatory System ◽

The United States ◽

Drug Misuse ◽

Prescription Drug Misuse ◽

Regulatory Oversight ◽

Pharmaceutical Supply Chain ◽

Post Marketing Surveillance ◽

Post Marketing ◽

The Times

Prescription medicines, such as analgesics, stimulants, steroids, anti-depressants, psychotropics, and certain antibiotics are commonly mishandled in a variety of ways, including overdosing, abuse, diversion, and drug trafficking. Because of the considerable risk to public health, they are subject to strict regulatory oversight. The drugs possess abuse potential at specific dose and hence prone to abuse therefore they are categorized as Controlled substances. Therefore, they are subject to constant vigilance over the pharmaceutical supply chain. The complete clinical data as well as post marketing surveillance study of such drugs are critical to be in place as per the regulatory requirements. The countries have kept up with the times by constantly updating the system with regulatory laws and strategies to prevent cases of misuse. The current review will give a quick summary of how prescription medications and prohibited substances are regulated in the United States, Europe, and India. It will also emphasize current trends in drug usage, as well as the issues that these countries face and the preventive policies implemented to manage and prevent drug misuse. It will also make recommendations for new regulatory initiatives to address the current drug- misuse-related concerns. As a result, a review of the regulatory system in various countries will present current challenges and new lessons for countries around the globe.

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