Lesbians' use of popular social media sites is associated with perceived drinking norms & interest in receiving personalized normative feedback on alcohol use.

Alcohol-related problems disproportionately impact sexual minority women. Recent research suggests that lesbian-identified women overestimate peer drinking norms and therefore, personalized normative feedback (PNF) may be an appropriate and efficacious intervention strategy for reducing alcohol-related risks in this population. To inform the development and packaging of such interventions, this study examines lesbians' use of the popular social media sites Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter in relation to alcohol consumption, perceptions of peer drinking norms, confidence in normative perceptions, and interest in receiving alcohol PNF. Findings suggest that the lesbians who are most likely to benefit from a PNF alcohol intervention may also be the most readily reached via social media sites. Alcohol interventions that both recruit and deliver PNF via widely used social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram represent a promising and cost-effective strategy to reduce heavy drinking among lesbians.

Increasing exposure to complementary and alternative medicine treatment options through the design of a social media tool.

The current study outlines the creation of an online community designed to connect patients to providers of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) and western biomedicine. The purpose of the site was to create a forum for patients and healthcare providers to share information and social support regarding eight popular CAM treatments. First, we created a prototype and pilot tested it through a usability analysis. Second, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 key stakeholders from the CAM, biomedicine, and patient populations. Third, we conducted a content analysis of the discussion forums to examine common posting behaviour. We found that CAM providers were the most active contributors to the forums. This project provides proof of concept for using an online community platform to connect patients and CAM providers. Future work should attempt to engage Western medicine providers while studying techniques and features that best engage users.