Comparing Online Community Structure of Patients of Chronic Diseases

TL;DR

This study analyzes and compares the social network structures of online patient communities for Crohn's disease, Cystic Fibrosis, and Type 1 diabetes on Facebook and Twitter, revealing differences in emotional expression and network cohesion.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of online community structures for different chronic disease patient groups across social media platforms.

Findings

Crohn's community shows high emotionality on both platforms.

T1D community has the most cohesive communication network.

Crohn's community is most negative on Twitter.

Abstract

In this paper we compare the social network structure of people talking about Crohn's disease, Cystic Fibrosis, and Type 1 diabetes on Facebook and Twitter. We find that the Crohn's community's contributors are most emotional on Facebook and Twitter and most negative on Twitter, while the T1D community's communication network structure is most cohesive.