Comparing Macro, Meso and Micro level Network Structures between Hispanic and Black Dementia Caregiving Networks in Twitter
Video
Team Information
Team Members
Maria De Planell Saguer, Research Coordinator, Department of Medicine, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University
Faculty Advisor: Sunmoo Yoon, Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Medicine, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University
Abstract
Racial and ethnic minorities have higher prevalence of dementia in the US.1 Moreover, dementia caregiving demands a higher, more intense level of care than other conditions. Because of structural and socio-economic disadvantages, racial and ethnic minority dementia caregivers suffer more from social isolation, loneliness, and poor quality of life.1 The expansion of social media use among underserved populations, particularly Twitter, can potentially provide social support for underserved dementia. The purpose of this study is to apply social network analysis on Tweets to compare Hispanic and Black dementia caregiving networks. We randomly extracted Tweets mentioning dementia caregiving and its related terms from corpora collected daily via API from Sep 1 to Dec 31, 2019 (n= 549,380 English Tweets, n= 185,684 Spanish Tweets). We first applied a Twitter bot detection algorithm to remove bot-generated Tweets followed by applying a lexicon-based demographic inference algorithm to automatically identify Tweets likely authored by Blacks and Hispanics (n= 114,511 English, n = 1,185 Spanish). We then applied the Leiden clustering algorithm to detect groups within each Hispanic and Black caregiving network using Python and ORA. Fourteen distinct groups (11.0%, modularity: 0.80) were detected in the Hispanic caregiving network whereas 123 groups (7.0%, modularity: 0.89) were found in the Black caregiving network. Both networks contained a similar proportion of dyads and triads (Hispanics 88.2%, 88.9% Blacks) while the Black caregiving network included slightly larger proportion of isolates (Hispanics 0.8%, Blacks 4.0%). This study provides useful baseline information on the composition of existing large groups, small groups and isolates for our future recruitment strategy and design of social support intervention in regards to emotional needs for Hispanic and Black dementia caregivers.
Team Lead Contact
Maria De Planell Saguer: md2853@cumc.columbia.edu
