Utilizing Big Data and Twitter to Discover Emergent Online Communities of Cannabis Users:

Substance Abuse: Research and Treatment

PeterBaumgartner¹ 

关键词: Big data;    cannabis;    network analysis;    stochastic block model;    methodology;   

DOI  :  10.1177/1178221817711425

学科分类：医学（综合）

来源: Sage Journals

【 摘 要 】

Large shifts in medical, recreational, and illicit cannabis consumption in the United States have implications for personalizing treatment and prevention programs to a wide variety of populations. As such, considerable research has investigated clinical presentations of cannabis users in clinical and population-based samples. Studies leveraging big data, social media, and social network analysis have emerged as a promising mechanism to generate timely insights that can inform treatment and prevention research. This study extends a novel method called stochastic block modeling to derive communities of cannabis consumers as part of a complex social network on Twitter. A set of examples illustrate how this method can ascertain candidate samples of medical, recreational, and illicit cannabis users. Implications for research planning, intervention design, and public health surveillance are discussed.

【 授权许可】

CC BY