Prescription Drug Abuse: Does Social Media Play a Role?
1. Prescription Drug Abuse:
Does Social Media Play a Role?
Catherine B Kemp
Social Media Marketing & Communication
CM 210-01, Spring 2012
Social Media Monitoring Project, Final Report
2. Prescription Drug Abuse:
Does Social Media Play a Role?
As discussed in the mid-term report for this
project, posted March 16, 2012, recent studies
have cited an alarming increase in the number
of adolescents and college students who
admit to illicit or recreational use of
prescribed opiate analgesics and stimulant
medications.
3. Prescription Drug Abuse:
Does Social Media Play a Role?
Paulozzi reported in an
article published in 2011
that, in 2008 in the U.S.,
opiate pain relievers were
involved in 73.8% of the
20,044 reported deaths
due to prescription drug
overdoses.
From: Paulozzi, L. J. (2011, November 4). Vital Signs:
Overdoses of Prescription Opioid Pain Relievers -- United States,
1999-2008. Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report , 60 (43), p 1491
4. Prescription Drug Abuse:
Does Social Media Play a Role?
Paulozzi reported in an
article published in 2011
that, in 2008 in the U.S.,
opiate pain relievers were
involved in 73.8% of the
20,044 reported deaths
due to prescription drug
overdoses.
From: Paulozzi, L. J. (2011, November 4). Vital Signs: Overdoses of
Prescription Opioid Pain Relievers -- United States, 1999-2008.
Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report , 60 (43), p 1491
5. Prescription Drug Abuse:
Does Social Media Play a Role?
Another study looking
at students who had
legitimate prescriptions
for either type of drug
found that 61.7%
diverted their
stimulants, while 35.1%
diverted their
analgesics to another
person for non-
prescribed use.
6. Prescription Drug Abuse:
Does Social Media Play a Role?
The principle objective of this monitoring
project is to explore whether or not data culled
from Social Media can be a useful tool in the
phenomenology research of non-medical use of
certain prescription drugs- specifically the
stimulant Adderall®, and the opiate analgesic
OxyContin®.
7. Prescription Drug Abuse:
Does Social Media Play a Role?
Objectives:
• To explore the types of interaction and
frequency of mentions;
• To identify any patterns of communication
related to these drugs that might emerge; and
• To explore some of the methodological,
ethical, and practical issues that must be
considered in this format.
8. Prescription Drug Abuse:
Does Social Media Play a Role?
Method:
The volume and context of mentions of each
drug were tracked daily, over the 6 week
period of February 16- March 28, 2012 on the
following social networking sites.
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google Plus
13. 3000
Adderall® Total Buzz February 17- April 16, 2012
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
14. Adderall® Total Buzz, Feb. 17- April 15, 2012
3000
2500
2000
1500 Tweet Volume
Positive Tweets
1000 Negative Tweets
Facebook Posts
500 Google Plus
Total Buzz
0
Source: actionly.com
15.
16.
17. Adderall® Observations
• The vast majority of mentions were contained in
"Tweets".
• There was a sharp drop in the number of "Adderall®"
mentions on all three networks during the first 2 weeks
of March, possibly coincident with Spring Break.
• Conversely, there was a sharp increase in "Adderall®"
mentions on the three networks in the latter half of
March.
• Review of individual messages revealed a "mixed bag"
of message types, including lyrics, online
pharmacies, partying, studying, and house cleaning.
18. Adderall® Observations
• There were few messages characterized as "positive", and even
fewer characterized as "negative". The basis for these
characterizations by the data provider was not clear.
• Online pharmacies advertising sale of the drug without a
prescription were consistently among the "top
Tweeters", generating high volumes of messages to low volumes of
followers.
• There was no clear evidence in this snapshot of Social Media being
used for illicit sale of the drug. The online pharmacies had high
volume output, but limited reach.
• It appears that Adderall® has become a euphemism for ADD/ADHD
stereotypes, alertness, studying, and staying awake for various
reasons. Less frequently it is spoken of in terms of sexual
enhancement and 'partying'.
23. OxyContin® Observations
• OxyContin® mentions showed lower degree of
variability than with Adderall®, in both volume
and context.
• The volume of OxyContin® mentions increased
modestly with two main news stories during the
study period:
– - During coverage of the Limbaugh/Fluke controversy;
and
– - Surrounding the withdrawal of OxyContin® from the
Canadian market.
24. OxyContin® Observations
• The majority of OxyContin® mentions were in
the context of concurrent news stories.
• Although there were some online pharmacies
advertising sale of the drug without a
prescription, there were far fewer than with
Adderall®, in both absolute volume, and as a
percentage of the total volume.
25. Overall Observations: Methodological Issues
• There is no demographic information available to help
classify or stratify data sources.
• Selection biases: Is this a "random" sample?
• These posts were written for public consumption. How
does this context affect the data? Can reliable
inferences be drawn?
• Can standard observational research methods be
adapted for Social Media data sources?
• What can be done to validate the data? What other
data would improve validity and reliability?
• Is the data relevant to the research being conducted?
26. Overall Observations: Some Ethical Issues
• Are existing Ethics Review procedures of study
protocols adequate to fully vet protocols of
research involving Social Media data sources?
• Is informed consent of subjects necessary, given
that the data is generated in and collected from a
public venue?
• What are the ethical duties of the Social Media
sites and the secondary data aggregators?
• Is there a duty to intervene on the part of the
researchers, and if so where does it lie and how
should it be executed?
• Are findings from such research sufficiently
reliable and valid to draw inferences?
27. Overall Observations: Privacy Issues
• There is a myriad of privacy issues that need to be
addressed that are beyond the scope of this discussion.
• Before continuing with further
clinical, epidemiological, or other scientific research
using social networking data sources, some of the
important issues are:
– Explicit privacy policies of the data provider- in this
project, none could be found on their websites;
– Implicit privacy expectations of the data sources;
– Local policies & procedures of the investigators related to
gathering and handling the data;
– Issues of inferences drawn from un-blinded data: are the
investigators subject to libel/slander charges?
28. Future Directions
In a March 28, 2012 blog post, author Jasper Snyder noted, "Being able to
extract this meaning is a challenge – it’s not easy to do – but it represents a
significant opportunity for market researchers to gain competitive
advantage." While his comments were directed towards a Market Research
audience, the underlying principle are relevant to this discussion. His
approach can help the investigator in ensuring that the data is from the
relevant people, discussing the relevant issues. This approach can be a solid
foundation from which to begin. To start, he suggests exploration of the
following questions:
• First, at the research level, you can choose to only include messages in
your analysis that are posted by the people whose opinions you’re
interested in. The way you define groups of people here may in fact map
to your existing customer segmentation taxonomy.
• Second, you could choose to ‘listen’ only in those venues where the
audience whose opinion you’re interested in is likely to be engaging.
• Third, you can make sure that you’re only including in your analysis
messages where your product (in this case OxyContin®, Adderral®) is being
talked about in a relevant context.
Source: Snyder, J: How to Use Social Media for Market Research. (March 28, 2012) Converseon
URL: http://blog.converseon.com/author/jasper-snyder/
